Second Time Around
by doubletwoa
Summary: Meredith Grey and Jackson Avery were prodigies in General Surgery, having graduated early from medical school and being the youngest attendings in history. Yet, they were always shadowed by their Grey and Avery names and were feared by people their own age who were only intern. So they decided for change in Seattle. MerDer, etc.
1. Starting Over

**Second Time Around**

Summary: Meredith Grey and Jackson Avery were prodigies in General Surgery, having graduated early from medical school and being the youngest attendings in history. Yet, they were always shadowed by their Grey and Avery names and were feared by people their own age who were only intern. So they decided for change in Seattle.

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 _A/N: Hi there, I recently binge watched 15 seasons of GA (longest series I watched) and I got inspired by Ben Warren story and another story written, I think it's called Hiding in plain sight._

 _The first few chapters will pretty much follow cannon before it starts to speed up and deviate from cannon around chapter 4/5. That's where the AU fun begins. So it you wanna skip the recap of Season 1, just skim through the first 3 chapters. I write in my free time so excuse me for any grammatical errors, etc.. Enjoy ~_

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 **Chapter 1: Starting over**

"Are we sure about this?"

Dr Meredith Grey and Dr Jackson Avery stood side by side at the entrance of Seattle Grace Hospital hit by nostalgia.

Meredith let out a chuckle, "Second time's the charm, Jackson Fox."

"After you, Meredith Black," Jackson faked curtsied before Meredith grabbed his hand and led him through the familiar halls of the hospital.

Meredith and Jackson met in Harvard Medical School and grew to be best friends, bonding through their common background of over-achieving parents / grandparents. By 22, the both of them graduated Medical School and interned at Massachusetts General Hospital before becoming the two youngest General Surgery attendings at age 26. They were known as the dream team Avery-Grey. Everyone wanted to be them, be friends with them, envied them. They were younger than their interns and residents. The both of them were married to their jobs, with barely any social life.

As established as they were, many people would come from all over the world requesting the both of them as their surgeons, not forgetting Meredith's mother, Ellis Grey, as well. And as famous as the Avery-Grey dream team was, without a doubt, the most revered team were the mother-daughter Grey. Thanks to the three names, Mass Gen currently had the Best General Surgery team. Ellis Grey was currently a strong candidate for nomination for the years Harper Avery, and that would make it her third Harper Avery - a collaboration research between Ellis and Meredith Grey. But with all these achievements, Jackson and Meredith did not feel accomplished and wanted to be treated normally.

Since the both of them were planning to start a fellowship in Neuro for Meredith and cardio for Jackson, Jackson thought why not become an intern again, a whole new identity.

A change, a chance to start anew.

When Meredith and Jackson told Ellis Grey and Catherine Fox about their plan, they were met with strong objections but after much persuasion, they were given the green light with the only condition of making sure to keep up with their surgery skills. Ellis managed to call her old friend, Richard Webber to get them into the internship program in Seattle Grace Hospital

Using their maiden name, the now Meredith Black and Jackson Fox stood in front the scrutinising Chief of Surgery, Richard Webber.

"It's an honour to have the both of you join our staff. I understand from Ellis that their condition is that you'd still have to clock in some OR hours besides interning. It'll be hard but we'll try at least twice a week? Here is your contract," Richard slid two stack of papers across the table. "You'll be paid the same amount you were earning previously, I have gathered a team for your 'secret' surgeries and they have already signed a contract to protect your secret. You will have to use the attending scrubs when you do your surgeries."

Richard handed a pen to the two surgeons before him, "Are you sure you want this? The offer for fellowship is still open?"

Meredith let out a laugh, snatching the pen and signed the paper immediately. Jackson amused by his partner before following her lead.

Richard gathered the papers before extending his hand, "The intern's mixer is tonight. Welcome to the team, Dr. Black, Dr. Fox.".

"Thank you Chief. That will take some time getting used to," Jackson remarked before grabbing Meredith in a headlock, "Let's unpack. We can skip the intern mixer. I saw a bar across the street."

"I thought we're trying to be normal," Meredith teased.

"Yes going to a bar is perfectly normal. We are going to work with these people for a long time, no rush to get to know them."

After unpacking their things in Meredith's mother old house, the both of them headed to the bar Jackson saw earlier, Emerald City Bar. Jackson was playing darts while Meredith sat at the bar, drinking her shots of tequila.

"Double scotch single malt please." A voice rang beside her, she turned to find a handsome looking man climbing onto the seat beside her. Maybe Seattle, wouldn't be too bad after all.

"So is this a good place to hang out?" the man turned to her, while Meredith tried to ignore him but when she met his gaze, she was mesmerized by his sparkling blue eyes, dazzling smile and amazing curly hair. All her desire to ignore said man, crumbled, "Uh… I wouldn't know. Never been here before.".

"Oh you know what? I haven't either. First time here. I'm new in town. Never been to Seattle. New job," he told her.

Meredith steeled herself, and turned away to down another shot of tequila but his presence was rather overwhelming. "You're ignoring me."

Boy, the man sure was persistent, it was endearing, Meredith threw a quick glance to him, muttering, "Trying to.".

The edges of the man's mouth curved into a smile, "You shouldn't ignore me"

"Why not?" Meredith asked though knew the answer to her own question. That smile was so dreamy, that hair, those eyes. "Because I'm someone you need to know to get to love."

Meredith couldn't help it, so she indulged the man, "Really?"

"Oh, yes."

"So if I know you, I'll love you," the man sure was cocky. "Oh, yes." But that arrogance was kind of sexy. "You really like yourself, huh?"

"Just hiding my pain," Letting loose, she laughed with the man, destroying all barriers she had from getting to know the man, as the man asked, "So what's your story?"

Meredith shook her head, "I don't have a story. I'm just a girl in a bar.". "I'm just a guy in a bar."

And that was all she remembered before waking up the next day, in the living room wrapped around the guy she met at the bar yesterday. Noticing her state of undress, she wrapped herself in the blanket, which prompted the man to wake up, while she looked for her clothes.

The man sat up, holding up a bra, "This is…uh…"

Meredith snatched the bra, "Humiliating on so many levels. You have to go," motioning the man to the door.

The man beckoned her to join him, "Why, why don't you just come back down here and we'll pick up where we left off.".

Meredith noticed the time, she was late, "No seriously you have to go. I'm late which isn't what you want to be on your first day of work, so…"

The man starts getting dressed, "So, you actually live here?"

"Yes. Kind of."

"Oh. It's nice. A little dusty. Odd. But it's nice. Huh. So how do you kinda live here?" The man was asking a lot of personal questions. Meredith was puzzled, not knowing why she felt the need to reply him, "I moved in yesterday from Boston. It was my mother's house. I'm selling it."

"Oh I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"You said was."

"Oh my mother's not dead. She's … you know what? We don't have to do the thing," Meredith replied frustratedly.

"Oh. We can do anything you want," the man mused, buttoning up the last few buttons of his shirt.

"No the thing. Exchange the details, pretend we care. Look I'm gonna go upstairs and take a shower. Ok? And when I get back down here, you won't be here. So … um … goodbye … um …" Meredith realised that they spent nearly 12 hours together, yet she still did not know the man's name.

"Derek," Derek extended his hand to greet her. "Derek. Right, Meredith."

Derek grinned, "Meredith. Nice meeting you."

"Meredith we're late," A voice echoed through the house, before Jackson emerged into the living room.

"Wait, you're married?" Derek asked in shock.

"What?... No. I don't need to explain this to you," Meredith replied before running up the stairs to shower.

"Mere, please use your room next time," Jackson laughed before turning to the other man, introducing himself and then kicking him out.

Jackson and Meredith ran into the hospital, running late for the interns orientation, but both of them entered the OR managing to catch onto the last part of Chief Webber's speech. "Each of you comes today hopeful, wanting in on the game. A month ago you were in med school being taught by doctors. Today, you are the doctors. The seven years you spend here, as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you. Say hello to your competition. Eight of you will switch to an easier specialty. Five of you will crack under the pressure. Two of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play, that's up to you."

Ah… Nostalgia. Meredith couldn't believe she was doing this again. Richard winked at the pair, so he noticed their late appearance. "We're screwed," Meredith whispered. Jackson grabbed her hand and squeeze it before giving her a knowing smile.

In the locker room, all the interns were putting on their scrubs, coats and stethoscopes waiting to be called by their resident. Meredith knew she'd be under the same resident as Jackson as promised by Webber. Meredith looked around to size up her 'peers'. "Only 6 women out of 20."

A Korean looking woman with wild looking hair heard her remark, "Yeah. I hear one of them's a model. Seriously, that's gonna help with the respect thing. I'm Cristina.".

"Meredith.".

"Which resident you assigned to? I got Bailey, the Nazi," Cristina replied.

"Nazi? But yes, I got Bailey too. This is Jackson, he got Bailey too," Meredith pulled her best friend who was still changing, groaned before introducing himself.

Another man approached the three of them, "You guys got the Nazi? So did I. At least we'll be tortured together, right? I'm George … O'Malley. Uh…Uh…" George was struggling to hold the conversation while stealing glances at Meredith. Meredith knew the guy was crushing on her and she was trying to be nice but Jackson wasn't being helpful. She knew he was going to tease her for the rest of the day.

Another doctor appeared by the locker room, "O'Malley, Yang, Karev, Stevens, Black, Fox, end of the hall!". The man pointed to a woman by the nurse's station. "That's the Nazi?" Cristina asked not believing that tiny woman was as fierce as the rumours said.

"I thought the Nazi would be a guy," George said.

Meredith knew that a doctor with a reputation like 'Nazi' means that they'd be formidable towards the interns and likely a force to be reckoned with in the OR. Deciding to play along, "I thought the Nazi would be … a Nazi."

A perky tall woman voiced out beside her, "Maybe it's professional jealousy. Maybe she's brilliant and they call her the Nazi because they're jealous. Maybe she's nice.".

"Let me guess. You're the model," Cristina deadpanned.

As they approached Dr Bailey, Izzi introduced herself, "Hi. I'm Isobel Stevens but everyone calls me Izzie. Dr. Bailey just stared at her before raising a single brow. Meredith resisted the urge to facepalm, No one likes a suck up. Meredith would send her interns or residents on a goose chase if any of them tried to curry favours from her.

"I have 5 rules," Bailey started as she beckoned the 5 interns to follow her, "Memorize them. Rule number 1. Don't bother sucking up. I already hate you, that's not gonna change….Trauma protocol. Phone lists. Pagers. Nurses will page you."

All of the interns rushed to follow Bailey as she walked away, "You answer every page at a run. A run! That's rule number 2. Your first shift starts now and lasts 48 hours. Your interns, grunts, nobodies, bottom of the surgical food chain. You run labs, write orders, work every second night until you drop and don't complain…. On call rooms. Attendings hog them. Sleep when you can, where you can. Which brings me to rule number 3. If I'm sleeping, don't wake me unless your patient is actually dying. Rule number 4. The dying patient better not be dead when I get there. Not only will you have killed someone, you would have woke me for no good reason. We clear?" Bailey finally turned around to acknowledge her interns.

Meredith decided that she like the resident before her. Meredith raised her hand, "You said five rules. That was only … four."

Bailey's pager went off, "Rule number five. When I move, you move." All the interns scrambled to follow the woman as she starts running down the hall, yelling at doctors and nurses to get out of her way leading them to the roof to wheel in a seizing patient from the helicopter. 15 year- old female Katie Bryce.

Bailey handed Cristina a chart, "Cristina you're on labs. George patient work ups. Meredith, get Katie for a CT. She's your responsibility now," Bailey walked out of the room.

"Wait, what about me and Jackson?" Izzie asked.

"You? Honey you both get to do rectal exams," Meredith smirked at Jackson, who was groaning at getting grunt work. Looks like Jackson drew the shorter end of the stick. "Lucky you, Grey," Jackson muttered under his breath. Meredith gave him a pointed look, hoping that no one else had heard Jackson.

While Izzie and Jackson putting on latex gloves and squeezing lube onto her fingers for their rectal exam.

Cristina managed to find Katie Bryce's labs coming out clear with nothing in the results that explains her seizures. On the other hand, Meredith was stuck with Katie, complaining about missing pageants, twisting her ankle in the talent rehearsal while doing rhythmic gymnastics causing her to trip over her ribbon.

"They gave her a sedative for the CT scans so she's a little groggy," Meredith acknowledged her patient's parents as they came to visit.

Mrs. Bryce gazed her unconscious daughter, "Will she be all right? Our doctor at home said that she might need an operation. Is, is that true? What kind of operation?"

Meredith was in a pinch. As much as she knew the answer, no intern would have been able to answer that question, "She's um … well … you know what I'm not; I'm not the doctor. Um I'm a doctor. But I'm not Katie's doctor, so I'll go get him for you." It hurt her pride to ask a resident what to do, she was an attending for god sake, but Meredith swallowed her pride as she approached Bailey. Playing the part of an intern, "Katie's parents have questions. Do you talk to them or do I ask Burke?"

"Ah no Burke's off the case. Katie belongs to the new attending now. Dr. Shepherd. He's over there," Dr. Bailey gestured to the attending and walks off. Meredith let the door close behind her and surveyed the room. As she was about to walk to Dr. Shepherd, she stopped abruptly. Dr. Shepherd is Derek from this morning with other doctors! She stood frozen. Dr. Shepherd took a glance at his chart, before making eye contact with Meredith and turns back to his chart. He did a double take as he realised who it was, Meredith scurried back the way she came. Dr. Shepherd watched her leave in shock. As Meredith walked down the hallway. Dr. Shepherd approached from behind her and pulled her into an empty stairwell, "Meredith, can I talk to you for a second.".

Meredith was at a loss, "Dr. Shepherd…"

"Dr. Shepherd? This morning it was Derek. Now it's Dr. Shepherd," Derek teased.

"Dr. Shepherd we should pretend it never happened," Meredith had to put her foot down. After all the effort she made to move to Seattle to lead a normal life, so being in any kind of relationship with an attending is definitely going to destroy whatever plans she made.

"What never happened? You sleeping with me last night? Or you throwing me out this morning," Derek was very amused, "Because both are fond memories I'd like to hold onto."

Meredith glared at the older man, "No. There will be no memories. I'm not the girl in the bar anymore and you're not the guy." Meredith was struggling to keep her resolve with Derek smiling at her, "This can't exist. You get that, right?"

Derek nodded, "You took advantage of me and now you want to forget about it."

"I did not take …" Derek interrupted her, "I was drunk, vulnerable and good-looking and you took advantage."

Meredith smirked, "Okay I was the one who was drunk and you are not that good looking."

"Maybe not today. Last night? Last night I was very good looking. I had my red shirt on. My good-looking shirt. You took advantage. Want to take advantage again? Say Friday night?"

Meredith was a little shocked. This attending has no shame, "No. You're an attending. And I'm your intern."

Derek leaned forward and stared at every inch of her face, tempted to kiss her.

"Stop looking at me like that!" Meredith took a step back. "Like what?" Derek feigned ignorance.

Meredith said adamantly, "Like you've seen me naked."

Derek smirked at her. "Dr. Shepherd! This is inappropriate. Has that ever occurred to you?" Meredith left the stairway to the cafeteria, not wanting to be anywhere the guy who was doing an amazing job at seducing her.

"Katie Bryce is a pain in the ass. If I hadn't taken the Hippocratic oath I'd Kevorkian with my bare hands," All the interns stare at Meredith in awe. "What?"

Breaking the awkward silence that ensued, Izzie pulled out a magazine, "Have you guys seem the latest magazine, Ellis Grey is on the front cover again," Izzie placed it on the table where all the interns were sitting. Meredith and Jackson glanced at each other nervously, hoping no one would catch on.

"Who's Ellis Grey?" George asked. Everyone turned to look at George in disbelief. Meredith couldn't help but laugh, it was refreshing change to know someone who did not know about her mother. But this drew unwanted attention from the rest of the interns to look at her.

Cristina ignored her new friend before explaining, "Ellis … The Grey method? Where'd you go to med school, Mexico? She was one the first big chick surgeons and she practically invented the abdominal retractor. She's a living legend. She won the Harper Avery. Twice! I'm pretty sure she'll win her third one. God I would kill to have Ellis Grey as a mother. I'd kill to be Ellis Grey. Or be the Grey daughter or the Avery kid. Hell, I wouldn't mind having kids if the father of my kids was an Avery."

Jackson almost choked on her coffee, while Meredith was doing her best to suppress her laughter.

Dr. Burke walked into the cafeteria and approached their table, "Good afternoon interns. It's posted but I thought I share the good news personally. As you know the honor of performing first surgery is reserved for the intern that shows the most promise. As I'm running the O.R. today I get to make that choice."

All the interns looked at him expectantly. Ah the memories, the first surgery, the most important lesson for interns which Meredith botched during her first time as an intern because she actually succeeded the surgery.

Dr Burke smiled and slapped George on the back, "George O'Malley. You'll scrub in for an appendectomy this afternoon. Congratulations. Enjoy."

While Meredith and Jackson were itching for a surgery, the both of them were looking forward to George's performance. The intern surgery was one that they both looked forward to every year a new batch of interns joined the team, the both of them having led the intern surgeries themselves before. After all, terrorize one and the rest fall in line. Cristina looked annoyed while George was dumbfounded. George was a puppy, he was a perfect choice.

Interns, resident and attending alike were gathered in the observation deck above the OR where to watch George help with the surgery.

"He's gonna faint. He's a fainter.", "Nah code brown. Right in his pants.", "He's all about the flop sweat. He's gonna sweat himself unsterile.", "10 bucks says he messes up the McBurney.", "10 says he cries.", "I'll put 20 on a total meltdown."

"50 says he pulls the whole thing off," All the interns stared at Izzie as if she grew another head, "That's one of us down there. The first one of us. Where's your loyalty?" As much as Meredith and Jackson enjoyed the rivalry and jealousy of the interns, it was nice to know there was a supporter. After all, Meredith was a living proof of wiping the floor on first surgeries.

Cristina broke the awkward silence, "75 says he can't even I.D the appendix."

For the OR, George exclaimed, "Appendix is out."

The Interns cheered for him. But this was where the good part starts, "Not Bad, O'Malley, Now all you have to do is invert the stump into the cecum. And simultaneously pull up on the purse strings but be careful not to …" And of course George being an intern broke them, "… break them… You ripped the cecum. You've got a bleeder. Filling with stool. What do you now?" George was panicking.

"Think. Start the suction and you start digging for those purse strings before she bleeds to death"

"He's choking," Cristina stated the obvious.

"Today! Pull your balls out of your back pocket. Lets go. What are you waiting for? Suction," George was still frozen. The heart monitor starts beeping rapidly but George remained unmoving causing Dr. Burke to sigh. It was pretty much expected this would happen. Hopefully, George would not be discouraged.

Dr Burke shoved George out of the way which prompted calls of "007" in the observation deck.

"What's 007 mean?" Izzie asked.

"License to kill," Jackson replied her.

Back in a deserted hallway lined with hospital beds, a dejected George asked, "007. They're calling me 007, aren't they?"

Meredith and Izzie replied in unison unconvincingly, "No one is calling you 007."

"Maybe I should've gone into geriatrics. No one minds when you kill an old person," George sighed.

"Surgery is hot. It's the marines. It's macho. It's hostile. It's hardcore. Geriatrics is for freaks who live with their mothers and never have sex," Cristina lamented.

Meredith pager went off, 911 for Katie Bryce. Fully expecting a medical emergency, Meredith was annoyed that there was no one else is there except for Katie who's reading a magazine, and only called her because she was bored. Being an intern sucks.

After entertaining her patient, Meredith walked into the post-op ward. Meredith walks in where Alex introduced himself, calling her hot before her pager goes off again. Damn it Katie again. Meredith had experienced may cry wolf before, and everytime she did, she knew that no matter how much it was a pain, she had to treat every 911 as an emergency, so she rushed off to Katie.

Katie was seizing.

"She's having multiple grand mal seizures. She's got diazepam. 2mg lorazepam. I just gave a second dose. Now how do you want to proceed?"

Meredith was fighting her instinct to take over control but here she was an intern and she knew she couldn't call the shots. "Okay she's full on the lorazepam? You paged Dr. Bailey & Dr. Shepherd?"

She had no choice, she had to take charge, the patient comes first. While the lorazepam was not working, they moved onto loading her with Phenobarbital which was to no use as well. "You paged Dr. Shepherd? Well page him again. Stat."

The EKG monitor flat lines. Heart's stopped. code blue was called. There was no time to lose, she couldn't wait for the residents or attendings. Meredith grabbed the paddles from the nurse who had placed gel on it. "Charge paddles to 200."

"Charged. Clear," Monitor is still flat lined. "Still V-FIB. Nothing."

"300!" "360!" Seeing no change, Meredith performed manual CPR, before charging again. Katie's heart monitor started beeping again before Dr. Shepherd ran into the room, "What the hell happened?"

"She had a seizure and her heart stopped," Meredith reported.

"A seizure? You were supposed to be monitoring her!" Derek reprimanded.

Meredith huffed, the audacity of the man before was baffling, "I checked on her. If you had answer your pager earlier instead of waltzing in, you'd realised I just saved your patients life. If I was not there, she'd be dead by now." Meredith huffed before exiting the room, leaving behind a stunned attending.

For some reason the interns were called to gather in the boardroom. Jackson handed Meredith a banana and the both of them were practising suturing. They had to compensate for the lack of OR time. Cristina watch them in awe at their finesse, their steady and graceful hands. Stitch by stitch it was perfect. But she was a woman of pride, she would never voice out the complement to them.

Dr Bailey stood by the door while Dr. Shepherd walked in to address all the interns, "Well good morning. I'm gonna do something that's pretty rare for a surgeon. I'm gonna ask interns for help." This caught the attention of all the interns, even those who were falling asleep. "I've got this kid Katie Bryce. Right now she's a mystery. She doesn't respond to our meds, labs are clean, scans are pure but she's having seizures. Grand mal seizures with no visible cause. She's a ticking clock. She's gonna die if I don't make a diagnosis. Which is where you come in. I can't do it alone. I need your extra minds, extra eyes. I need you to play detective. I need you to find out why Katie is having seizures. I know you're tired; your busy, you got more work than you can possibly handle. I understand. So I'm going to give you an incentive, whoever finds the answer rides with me. If Katie needs surgery, you get to do what no other interns get to do, scrub in to assist on advance procedure," All the interns perked up. Meredith looked up from her banana to see the twinkle in Cristina's eyes. She smiled, it was always nice to see interns motivated to get themselves in the OR, Meredith had been working for more than 5 years and she still felt she did not have enough time in the OR.

"Dr. Bailey is going to hand you Katie's chart. The clock is ticking fast people. If we're going to save Katie's life we have to do it soon," Dr. Shepherd walked out, while all the interns scrambled to grab a copy of Katie's file, which was sitting on the middle of the table before leaving to head to the library.

Jackson and Meredith waited to take the last files before sitting down in the boardroom. Cristina noticed the two of them and for some reason knew that if any of the interns would get a chance to scrub in, it was the two of them, "I want in on Shepherd's surgery. Meredith, you've been the intern on Katie since the start. You guys wanna work together? If we find the answer; we have a 33/33/33 chance of scrubbing in."

Meredith glanced over to Jackson who simply shrugged in response. While it would reduce their chances to scrub in, it was nice to have an addition to the Avery-Grey team.

The three of them joined the rest of the interns in researching what Katie could have in a medical library.

"So she doesn't have anoxia, chronic renal failure or acidosis. It's not a tumor because her CT's clean," Cristina listed out.

"No. What about infection?" Jackson suggested lazily.

Cristina flipped through Katie's file "No. Ah there's no white count. She has no CT lesions. No fevers. Nothing in her spinal tap."

"What about an aneurysm?" Jackson asked. Meredith sighed, "No blood on the CT. No headaches."

Cristina scratched her head, "Okay. There's no drug use. Ah no pregnancy. No trauma."

Realisation dawned on Meredith, "Rhythmic gymnastics…"

"Isn't it something with like a ball and ah …" Cristina finally notices Meredith's thoughtful look, "What? … Meredith what?". Jackson realised Meredith train of thoughts filled Cristina in about their suspicions.

Meredith rushed out of the library, with Jackson and Cristina trailing, and finally manage to catch Dr Shepherd who was about to enter the elevator.

Meredith tried to collect her breath while Cristina started off, "Oh, oh Dr. Shepherd. Just one moment um…Katie competes in beauty pageants."

"I know that but we have to save her life anyway," Derek pointed out.

"Okay she has no headaches, no neck pain, her CTs clean…" Dr. Shepherd glanced at the people on the elevator waiting for the doors to close while Cristina kept it open to continue, "There is no medical proof of an aneurysm. But what if she has an aneurysm anyway?"

"There are no indicators."

"But she twisted her ankle a few weeks ago when she was practicing for the pageant. She fell when she twisted her ankle. She fell," Meredith hoped he would catch on to what Cristina was saying.

"Well you know what the chances that minor fall can burst into an aneurysm? One in a million! Literally," Dr Shepherd entered the elevator, losing hope the three of them walked away. But the doors binged open and Dr. Shepherd got out, "Let's go."

"Where?" Cristina asked.

"To find out if Katie is one in a million." They performed an angiogram on Katie. Dr. Shepherd noticed something on the screen, "I'll be damned. There it is. It's minute. But it's there." Cristina took a closer look.

"It's a sub-arachnoid hemorrhage. She's bleeding into her brain," Meredith muttered as she stared at the screen in awe. Meredith was broken out of her stupor when she noticed Jackson's pointed look and glanced at Dr Shepherd's and Cristina's surprise look on their faces. Right, she was an intern now.

"That's right Dr Black, I am surprised you could identify sub-arachnoid hemorrhage from the scans. Katie could've gone throughout her entire life without it ever being a problem. One tap in the right spot… it exploded. Now I get to fix it. You 3 did great work. Love to stay and kiss your Asses but I got tell Katie's parents she's having surgery," Derek was about to rush off before Cristina stopped him, "Dr. Shepherd you said that you'd, you'd pick someone to scrub in if we helped."

"Oh yes right. Um, I'm sorry I can't take you three. It's gonna be a full house. Meredith I'll see you in OR," Cristina looked shocked and upset at Meredith and walked away in a huff.

Meredith tried to call out to her new friend, "Well there goes my resolve to make friends…"

Jackson chuckled before giving her a side hug, "She'll come around. After all, you deserve it, and you want to specialize in Neuro anyway… By the way, don't you find Shepherd a little familiar?"

Meredith walked into Katie's room and noticed Dr. Shepherd shaving Katie's head for surgery.

Derek noticed her entrance, prompting him to smile at her, "Promised her I'd make her look cool. Apparently being a bald beauty queen is the worse thing that happened in the history of the world."

Meredith pondered over Jackson's question earlier in the day. She had to agree with him. Had she worked with or met Derek before? "Did you choose me for the surgery because I slept with you?"

"Yes," Derek teased, "I'm kidding. You're Katie's doctor. And on your first day with very little training you helped save her life. You earned the right to follow her case through to the finish. You shouldn't let the fact that we had sex get in the way of you taking your shot. And you did great diagnosing her."

Richard Webber was checking on Alex's post-op patient when Meredith passed by to get Katie's charts. "She's still short of breath. Did you get an ABG or a chest film?" Alex nodded. "What did you see?"

Alex made up excuses, which was interrupted by Chief Webber "Name the common causes of post-op fever."

Alex flipped through the charts, Chief Webber shook his head and pressed for an answer, "From your head. Not from a book. Don't look it up. Learn it. It should be in your head. Name the common causes of post-op fever." When he saw Alex struggling to answer, Chief Webber interrupted him and called out loudly to the whole ward, "Can anybody name the common causes of post-op fever?"

Everyone was silent. Another intern looked down to look through her own notes. Meredith shook her head, these were basic, even as an intern, they should have know, she decided to break the silence to speaks out, "Wind, water, wound, walking, wonder drugs. The 5Ws. Most of the time it's wind, splinting or pneumonia. Pneumonia is easy to assume. Especially if your too busy to do the tests."

Richard looks back at Alex who looks down before smiling at Meredith, "What do you think is wrong with 4B?"

"The 4th W. Walking. I think she's a prime candidate for a pulmonary embolism. I would diagnose her with a Spiral CT. VQ scan. Provide O2. Dose with heparin and consult for an IVC filter." Chief Webber told Alex to do exactly as she says and then tell his resident that he wants him off this case.

Meredith entered the OR for Katie's surgery. It had been a week since she picked up a scalpel. She missed the OR, she missed working with Jackson and her mum. But most of all she missed surgeries. It was weird to step into an OR without her favorite scrub cap.

Dr Shepherd glanced the room, "All right everybody. It's a beautiful night to save lives. Let's have some fun."

Meredith felt a chill down her spine. Those words. No wonder he looked familiar. Dr. Derek Shepherd, one of the best Neurosurgeons there is. She finally remembered, two years ago Shepherd had joined in a Conjoined Twin Separation collaboration surgery with Jackson and herself at Mass Gen. She was doomed, it was only a matter of time before he would realise who she was too, she glanced up to the observation deck that was filled with interns and residents before catching Jackson's gaze. Jackson had realised it too.

Putting aside her fears, Meredith concentrated in helping out with the surgery and she suddenly felt giddy with the prospect of learning from such a renown and established Neurosurgeon so as to get her second board certification.

"We don't have to do that thing you know where I say something and then you say something and then somebody cries and there's like a moment …" Cristina said as she caught up with Meredith who had walked out of the OR. Meredith decided she liked her. Meredith nodded and laughed, Cristina would definitely be a great ally and friend in the years to come.

Ending the first week of work, Meredith and Jackson were gathered into Chief Webber's office and noticed two other people there too.

"Thank you for gathering here today, this will be the confidential surgery team. Scrub Nurse, Bokhee and Anaesthesiologist, Dr Ben Warren," Chief Webber introduced.

"Dr Warren and Bokhee, under no circumstances are you allowed to reveal their identity or any information of the surgeries other than to me or the both of them. This is Dr. Jackson Avery and Dr. Meredith Grey."

Ben Warren and Bokhee turned stared in shock at the two renowned figures before them. Ben shook their hands, "It's an honour to be able to work with you both. Why all the secrecy? With their names shouldn't you be flaunting them. That'd be great PR for the hospital," Ben asked.

"They had expressed their wishes to start fresh. They go by Dr Black and Dr Fox here. So the first surgery will be tomorrow at 23 00 hours, I will be there to observe in the surgery," Chief Webber distribute the files around, "Patients name is Mr Alan, you'll be performing a pancreaticoduodenectomy."


	2. Sucks being an Intern

**Second Time Around**

Summary: Meredith Grey and Jackson Avery were prodigies in General Surgery, having graduated early from medical school and being the youngest attendings in history. Yet, they were always shadowed by their Grey and Avery names and were feared by people their own age who were only intern. So they decided for change in Seattle.

* * *

 _A/N: I have already written up to 8 chapters of the story but I am still unsure about how the story will pan out. That's why I am hesitating on posting the chapters. If any of you have any suggestions, free feel to share. The first few chapters will pretty much follow cannon before it starts to speed up and deviate from cannon around chapter 4/5. That's where the AU fun begins. So it you wanna skip the recap of Season 1, just skim through the first 3 chapters. I write in my free time so excuse me for any grammatical errors, etc.. Enjoy ~_

 _On another note, as much as I ship Merder, I'm kinda shipping Merluca. Anyone with me? But don't worry, this is still a MerDer fic, not sure about my other pairings, because the others change partners like they change their panties._

* * *

 **Chapter 2: Sucks being an Intern**

"Hey Mere, do you think we should get roommates? We've got empty rooms in the house…" Jackson pondered. Meredith shrugged in response, "Sure". As Jackson was about to paste a poster on the board, he was immediately hounded by George and Izzie.

"This was a bad idea," Meredith deadpanned as Jackson laughed nervously, pulling the poster off the board.

"Wait no… Why put up posters if you don't want roommates?" Izzie whined.

"We're together 80 hours a week. You want to live together too? l just want total strangers who l don't have to talk to or be nice to." Meredith pointed out.

George handed two mocha lattes to Jackson and Meredith while Izzie struggled to come up with a valid reason on why she was better than George to be a roommate, "l can cook, and l'm an obsessive cleaner."

Meredith sighed in resignation, "Fine, you both can live with us. But one of you will have to take the attic and I don't accept bribes.".

"Dr. Bailey, l was hoping to assist you in the OR today. Maybe do a minor procedure. l think l'm ready," Cristina tried her luck before giving her the cup of mocha latte that Meredith rejected earlier. Izzie was quick on the uptake, "lf she gets to cut, l want to cut."

Meredith smiled, remembering how all the interns were always excited about surgeries and she couldn't wait to make the cut that night with Jackson. Bailey tried to ward off her interns before stomping her feet, "Stop talking. Every intern wants to perform their first surgery. That's not your job. Do you know what your job is? To make your resident happy. Do l look happy? No. Why? Because my interns are whiny. You know what will make me look happy? Having code team staffed, having the trauma pages answered, having the weekend labs delivered and having someone down in the pit doing the sutures. No one holds a scalpel till l'm so happy l'm Mary-freakin'-Poppins. Mocha latte, my ass. Why are y'all standing there? Move!"

Meredith entered the elevator filled with dread when she saw who it was inside. Not looking up, the manspoke up, "Seattle has ferryboats. l didn't know that. l've been living here for weeks and l didn't know there were ferryboats.".

Meredith turned to the man and pointed out, "Seattle is surrounded by water on three sides.".

"Hence the ferryboats… Now l have to like it here. l wasn't planning on liking it here. l'm from New York, genetically engineered to dislike everywhere, except Manhattan. l have a thing for ferryboats," he snapped his phone before looking up to Meredith, a grin creeping up his least thankfully he hadn't found out her secret yet and she did not want to risk it any further with whatever weird relationship Derek had in mind, putting her ground down she stated, "I'm not going out with you.".

"Did l ask you to go out with me?" Derek mused, "Do you want to go out with me?"

"l'm not dating you, and l'm definitely not sleeping with you again... You're my boss," Meredith crossed her arms as if reprimanding the older man who was technically of same rank as her.

"l'm your boss's boss," Derek corrected her teasingly.

"You're my teacher and my teacher's teacher. And you're my teacher," Technically it wasn't true but she had to play along.

''l'm your sister. l'm your daughter," he stated sarcastically, leaning in closer to her from behind.

Meredith felt as if she couldn't breathe as she felt his breath tingling on her neck, she accused, ''You're sexually harassing me."

"l'm riding an elevator," Derek replied smugly.

"Look, l'm drawing a line. The line is drawn. There's a big line," Meredith felt her self-control waning as his presence behind suddenly felt huge.

"So, this line, is it imaginary, or do l need to get you a marker?" Derek teased. That perfectly moussed hair, those dreamy blue eyes, that dazzling smile… Oh what the hell, Meredith decided to throw caution to the wind, dropping her files and crashed his lips with hers. Hearing the ding sound of the elevator indicating they've reached their level, Meredith pulled away, grabbed her dropped files and exited, leaving Derek to stare at her leaving figure, smirking, before hollering, "I'll see you later."

* * *

A rape victim, one of the most heart-wrenching part of the job was when they had to fix unfortunate people like this one, and what was worse and went against every morals was having the obligation to treat all patients, that included the likes of rapist and shooters.

Derek Shepherd and Preston Burke were the attendings treating the rape victim in the OR.

"See how shredded her hands are? She tried to fight. Rape kit came back negative. She kicked his ass!"

"Her name is Allison," Meredith spoke up, not liking how they treated the patient. Dr Burke continued on with the surgery before finally finding the answer, "l think l may have found the cause of our rupture. Large hemostat. More suction." Burke pulled out the foreign object, puzzled, "What is this? Does anyone know what this is?"

Realization dawned on Meredith. "Oh, my God," she squeaked out.

"What? Spit it out, Black," Burke asked in frustration of not knowing what it was.

"She bit it off."

"Bit off what?"

"That's h-his penis. She bit off his his penis," Meredith noticed the horrified look among all the men in the OR before dropping the penis into a cooler box. In all her career, this was the first severed penis she had ever seen.

Meredith barged into Richard Webber's office, carrying her cooler box for the penis. "So they said to bring this to you, for the police.".

Richard dismissed her, " You have to take it with you. Chain-of-custody rules. All medical matter in a rape must stay with the person who collected it until it's placed in police custody. You collected the specimen, so you have custody until the cops come for it."

"l've called every hospital in the county. Sooner or later, the guy that did this is gonna seek medical attention. When he does, that penis you're carrying is going to nail him," Derek smiled at her.

"Great, Custody of a penis," Meredith muttered under her breath, clearly annoyed with the arrangement. Even as an intern at Mass Gen, she had never been a penis minder before.

"I hate being an intern," Meredith slumped and leaned on Jackson where all the interns were gathered in the tunnels.

"Come on, there's something we can do to cheer us up," George dragged the interns up to the Peds floor.

Chuckles, cooing and laugher while George was talking gibberish, "You are such a woman," Jackson teased the other man.

Several beeping of pagers brought them out of their baby wonderland and had them running down the halls to answer the pagers, leaving Jackson and Meredith behind.

"Hey Jackson did you see that?" Meredith pointed to a baby turning blue.

"A heart murmur?" Meredith nodded.

"You're not authorized to be in here. Do you know how much trouble you can get into?" A peds intern approach the two of them.

"Are you going to do any tests? lt's a benign systolic ejection murmur," Jackson pressed.

"lt goes away with age," The intern dismissed the both of them as she walked away, "You should get out of here."

Meredith knew she was right and if they were in Mass Gen, that intern would have gotten a hell of a lashing from her and the baby would have been in the OR right now. But alas being an intern sucks so the two of them found their next best option, "Chief Webber? There's a baby up in Peds. l saw him have a tet spell, and l think l hear a murmur. Do you think you could get Burke to take a look at him?"

"Alright Jackson, thank you for informing me."

* * *

"I'm having a bad day…" Meredith declared. Jackson, Meredith and Cristina were sitting around the cooler box while on their break. "l kissed Derek," Meredith confessed.

"You kissed Derek?" Cristina tried to pry for more information.

"ln the elevator. l was having a bad day."

"This is what do you do on your bad days, make out with Dr. McDreamy," Cristina teased.

"Well kissing him isn't so bad as... you know," Jackson stated recalling the memory of seeing a half-naked Meredith and Derek in the living room. Meredith glared at her best friend, warning him not to spill the beans.

"You know, he keeps staring at me, it's starting to creep me out," Jackson complained.

"Who is?"

"Shepherd", Jackson replied. Meredith sighed, "At least he's not stalking you. He's everywhere..."

"I think he's trying to kill me, have you told him… that we're not a thing or whatever?"

"Derek jealous?" Meredith scoffed. "And we're not a together or a thing or whatever. I don't have to tell him anything or justify myself. Meredith pager went off, "Looks like they found the owner of the penis!"

And unfortunately for the man the severed penis was not a clean cut so it could not be reattached so he was sewed up without his family jewels, He would have to be urinating out of a bag for a long time or ever be able to have sex again. Justice would be served one way or another. Burke on the other hand, managed to treat the baby with the birth defect, Tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia.

Meredith held wanted to check on Allison before noticing Derek munching in chips at the nurses station, "Have you been here all night?"

"Mm-hmm. You know, l have four sisters. Very girly. Tons of kids. lf l was in a coma, they'd all be here. l'd want them here. Having no one? Can't imagine that."

Derek washed his hands before leaning on a doorway beside Meredith, "So we're kissing, but we're not dating?"

"I knew that was going to come up."

"Don't get me wrong. l like the kissing. l'm all for the kissing. More kissing, l say," Derek said.

"I have no idea what that was about," Meredith tried to ignore his advances.

"Is it gonna happen again? Because if it is, l need to bring breath mints," he gazed at her, before leaning close to her, whispering, "Put a condom in my wallet.".

"Shut up now."

"There was this baby up in the nursery. He's brand new. No one's neglected him or damaged him yet. How do we get from there to here? Someone's beat the crap out of her, and she's got nobody. I just don't get it." Suddenly there was a beeping, Derek rushed into the room while Meredith hit the alarm before wheeling her into the OR.

Meredith sighed, the rapist lost a penis but here was Allison who may never wake up, Meredith leaned against the wall, waiting for Derek's return hopefully with hood news. "I had to leave her skull flap off, till the pressure in her brain goes down."

Meredith shook her head. The world was such a cruel place. Derek looked at her helplessly, "She's going to be fine."

"If she ever wakes up," Meredith pointed out.

Derek nodded and sighed, "If she ever wakes up."

Meredith walked over to the elevator to head to the OR, she was about to have a surgery with Jackson but ran into Derek who was waiting for the elevator. "So. It's intense… this thing I have for, ah, ferry boats I mean."

Meredith turned to smile at Derek, who had a playful glint in his dreamy blue eye, "I'm so taking the stairs this time."

"No self-control," Derek called out before entering the elevator. "It's sad. Really."

* * *

Donning the attending scrubs, Meredith and Jackson entered the OR, Ben and Bokhee had already prepared the patient.

"I missed this," Jackson commented as he scrubbed in. It felt good to be back in the OR, back in control rather than being an intern.

"Alright, Dr Webber, Dr Warren, Dr Avery, Bokhee, it's an honour working with you guys. I am Dr Meredith Grey, lets save Mr Alan life, shall we?" Meredith smiled at her team.

"Looking forward to working with you Dr Grey, Dr Avery," Ben stated as he took a seat.

"Can't wait to see the great Avery-Grey duo in action," Webber remarked as he took his place beside Meredith.

"Bokhee, scalpel" Jackson made the first cut, smiling at Meredith.

The surgery was very remarkable and of course successful without any complications. It was flawless, Ben, Richard and Bokhee could tell, that was raw talent and hardwork, the sutures and the hand movements were flawless. Stitch by stitch, her hands held much grace like an art as if she painting. Webber and Warren could not take their eyes off the surgery. This was the first time Ben held no desire to continue the crossword puzzle in his hands. Jackson and Meredith were so in-sync that it was hard to imagine that they were only best friends. No doubt, Meredith was Jackson's work wife and jackson was Meredith's work husband. Their teamwork was impeccable. From that surgery, Webber knew that whatever extraordinary labels the two had were well deserved, and he was excited about the prospects the two would bring to the hospital in the years to come.

* * *

"George's room is bigger than mine," Meredith groaned as she was pulled out from her slumber to see Izzie standing at the foot of her bed. She had just finished her surgery with Jackson and only had a few hours of sleep and clearly did not appreciate the interrupted sleep. Meredith got up but tripped and fell flat on her face before limping in Jackson's room, getting under the covers to sleep beside him.

But of course the peace was short lived as Izzie had found her, "I have more clothes, I should have the bigger room, why do I get the attic".

Meredith tried to pull the blanket in an attempt to block the unwanted bedroom visitor but was joined in by George, "I got here first."

"It's Meredith's house, she should decide."

Jackson finally woke up, mumbling incoherently.

"My room is like, two inches bigger than yours!" "You have a bigger closet!"

"Mer, get them out," Jackson whined and as annoyed as she was, she couldn't help but giggle, "Getting roommates was your brilliant idea…" And then a pillow was thrown to the doorway in an attempt to chase Izzie and George out of the room which did work, but the argument carried on in the hallway but stopped suddenly.

Meredith reluctantly got up of bed to check if they had killed each other. Instead, she found Izzie and George rummaging through boxes. Izzie jumped up when she saw Meredith and pulled the other woman to view the boxes, "Meredith, you have all this amazing stuff just packed away. In the back hall, I found this box with like a hundred tapes of Ellis Grey performing these amazing medical procedures. How did you get them?"

Meredith froze, unsure of how to answer he without exposing herself. How could she have forgotten about those tapes. She was pretty sure that some of those tapes included surgeries that herself and Jackson performed as well.

"We bought them from a friend in med school," Jackson replied on Meredith's behalf as he emerged from his room. Instinctively, Meredith snatched the tapes from them and took the box away to the store room to have it locked away from her new roommates.

* * *

"Fools on bikes killing themselves. Natural selection is what it is. Chief! Dead baby bike race started twenty minutes ago," Bailey approached Chief Webber who was admiring the OR Board.

"All right, people! Dead baby bike race day!" Chief Webber hollered.

"What's that?" Jackson turned to ask his best friend.

"Dead baby bike race day, only in Seattle. Every year, the Dead Baby Bar holds this underground bike race. The race is completely illegal, and crazy, a bunch of bike messengers racing against traffic trying to beat each other for free shots of tequila. All-out, no holds barred competition, the race doesn't even have any rules. Except eye gouging - no eye gouging," Meredith explained.

"Great, we're going to be trapped in the Pit bandaging up idiots when we could be up in the OR?" Cristina approached the duo from behind moaning.

What kind of people engage in a race that has, as its only rule, that you can't rip out the eyeballs of another human being?" George grumbled.

"Okay people, the rules of trauma. Don't mingle with the ER interns, they don't know their ass from their oesophagus. Sew fast, discharge fast, take bodies up to the OR yesterday. Don't let me catch you fighting over patients. Got it? Come on, let's go," Bailey instructed.

The interns ran and jostled for positions to tend to the injured bike riders everywhere. Cristina was giddy with excitement, "Oh, it's like candy, but with blood, which is so much better." Cristina, Izzie and Alex were fighting over patients which brought memories of their first time as intern struggling and fighting for OR time and patients. Both Jackson and Meredith dived in to join in the intern fight for patients and yet she was stuck with the interns job, suturing while all of the other patients needing surgery passed by her. It sucked being an intern.

"Ah, you got a nice touch. And by the way, you are a rocking babe," Viper flirted.

"Seriously, do you actually think you have a shot here?" Meredith rolled her eyes, losing her patience since she was stuck on scut.

"I like to think I've got a shot anywhere."

"Look, you really have to let me take you for some tests, and a CT. You could have internal bleeding," Meredith chastised.

"No thank you, I've got a race to get back 's a party at the finish line. Do you want to meet me there?" Viper scrambled to get up.

Meredith persuaded the man to take the test but to no avail, so she shoved him the AMA forms to sign. Viper got the papers signed, took a few steps towards the door, turned back, grabbed Meredith and kissed her, "That was for good luck... Don't worry, darling, you'll see me again." before dashing out of the ER.

Meredith shook her head, looked up and noticed Derek entering, "What do you want?"

"You make out with patients now? How many guys are there?"

"What are you, jealous?"

"I don't get jealous. We had sex, and we kissed, in an elevator. No, seriously, I mean come on, go out with me," Derek attempted to fish a date out from Meredith again. Meredith shook her head in refusal.

Derek pulled himself closer to Meredith and gazed intently into her eyes, "You know, I almost died today... Yeah, I came like this close. How would you feel if I died? And you didn't get a chance to go out with me?"

It took every ounce of Meredith self-restraint from jumping the man with the charming smile and sparkling eyes, "Get over yourself already. It's the chase, isn't it? The thrill of the chase. I've been wondering to myself, why are you so hell bent on getting me to go out with you? You know you're my boss, you know it's against the rules, you know I keep saying no. It's the chase."

"Well, it's fun, isn't it?" Derek smirked.

"You see? This is a game to you. But not to me. Because unlike you, I still have something to prove," She did not come all this way to start over and have it ruined by having a relationship with an attending.

"And if I didn't know any better, I'd thought you are gay with the way you're staring at Jackson. Stop harassing my best friend," Meredith left the man behind and instead bumped into her best friend outside who gave her a knowing look.

"Boston, Seattle, I don't see the difference, you still have patients kissing you," Jackson stated as the two of them walked to the ICU. "Shepherd's a great guy, you don't have to hold back."

Interrupted by alarms going off, they rushed to the patient. No DNR, Jackson instinctively took point at CPR and called the code while Meredith ordered for transfusion and dopamine before noticing a shocked looking Izzie at the corner of the room.

"What are you doing Izzie, he's your patient!" Meredith accused. Meredith frowned when Izzie did nothing so she focused on the patient until finally he was stable.

Before being able to bring out her 'attending'-lecture, Izzie finally spoke up, "He's a John Doe, brain dead. He had 27 minutes to go… I'm in so much trouble..."

Cristina burst into the room claiming the man to be a viable donor to Chief Webber's VIP patient but had a traumatic aortic injury and would need a surgery to prevent a rupture and bleed out if he were to remain a viable donor. Cristina pulled a bold stunt by approaching Dr Burke regarding the surgery. Meredith decided she liked the bunch of interns, they had guts and a drive she had never seen in any of her interns at Mass Gen. Which was probably why she took the blame of giving the brain-dead John Doe the blood transfusion without consulting anyone, something she was still trying to get used to and even went to the extra mile of consulting with Chief Webber with the interns wild idea since they so badly wanted the chance to scrub into a heart transplant surgery. Even after helping to pull the strings, unfortunately for Cristina and Izzie, Alex managed to sweep in and snatched the spot in scrubbing into the surgery. And of course, he goaded the rest of the interns since he was the first intern of their batch to scrub in a transplant surgery.

After having saved Viper who came back with an infection from her previous stitches, Meredith was packing up her stuff in the locker room to get back home before having to return past midnight for he weekly surgery with Jackson. Derek entered, shutting the door, "It's not the chase."

Meredith looked up to face Derek, "What?"

"You and me. It is not the thrill of the chase. It's not a game. It's...it's your hair… Smells good. And you're very, very bossy. Keeps me in line," Derek smiled.

He was good… real smooth… Meredith knew it was only a matter of time. Maybe… maybe it was okay to let the man before him into her bubble. Was Jackson right? "I'm still not going out with you."

Derek smirked, "You say that now," before leaving Meredith to ponder.

* * *

Everyday. It was a routine, Derek Shepherd would 'accidentally' bump into Meredith somewhere in the hallways and find any excuse to talk to her. He would watch her from across rooms and hallways, he would glare whenever she was with Jackson. It was to the point that Bailey and the other interns also realised the attention Meredith was getting from the Head of Neuro. Meredith had steeled herself not to cave to the man's pursuit in going out with her.

And yet despite having appeared at 4 for pre-round, she found Derek waiting outside the intern's locker room waiting for her. She couldn't help it, she knew it wouldn't be too long before she would throw caution to the wind, forget about all the secrets and claim the man.

"You're here early," Meredith stated before walking away.

Derek was a persistent man, he followed her, "I have a chordotomy at 5:00. I'll be out at 6:00. I thought I might buy your breakfast before your rounds."

"I've already eaten."

Derek stood before her "What'd you have?"

"None of your business," Meredith tried to dismiss him.

Derek pointing at her accusingly, "you a cereal person? Straight out of the box? Or all fruit and fiber-y?", he laughed, "Pancakes? Do you like pancakes?"

Hoping to get the man to back off, Meredith relented and replied, "Fine, leftover grilled cheese. Curiosity satisfied?"

"That's sad. It's pathetic," He feigned pity, "A good day starts with a good breakfast."

"Look, I'm not being seen with you in this hospital. Learn it, live it. It's unprofessional," Meredith lectured him.

"I'm just an attending getting to know one of his interns," Derek defended himself.

"He slept with the intern, he alienates her best friend," Meredith deadpanned.

"Barely knew her," Derek spontaneously replied, with a tinge of guilt.

"And it should stay that way," Meredith stated in finality.

"You want me to be professional? I'll be professional," Derek suddenly got serious before saying haughtily, "Nice talking to you, Dr. Black."

Meredith was surprised when Bailey instructed herself, Jackson and Alex to trauma on Dr Shepherd's request. Wasn't he in surgery? As the three approached Dr Shepherd, Meredith stared in awe at the X-Rays, "Nails… and he's still conscious?"

"Cruz, Jorge Cruz. He tripped and fell down a flight of stairs holding a nail gun."

"This is tempting me to betray cardio for neuro," Jackson muttered under his breath causing Meredith to stifle a laugh.

Derek being close to the two overheard their conversation which prompted him to raise a brow, before turning back to the patient, ignoring his gut feeling about the pair, "Somehow he managed to miss a blood vessel. That's a minor miracle. Optic nerve's been affected. Can you feel this? Numbness on his right side. What's our immediate concern?"

"Infection," Meredith replied.

Derek ordered a CT scan but the CTs are down and MRI was not an option, realisation dawned on Meredith, she had to scrub in on this surgery. Filming from three axis points and a C-arm in surgery to pull out the nails was enough for Meredith to drool. She was not worried about Alex but judging by Jackson's facial expression, he was going to fight tooth and nail for it too. Just like old times. Derek instructed them to their research if it had been done before while Meredith was to contact his wife.

"Neuro is mine," Meredith taunted as they exited.

"It's on Grey," Jackson dashed ahead, not realising that Derek had overheard their exchange. Luckily for Meredith, Derek was swamped with work and was almost immediately ignored what he had heard.

Alex and Jackson managed to find 23 cases, with the biggest problems were bleeding and infection but the odds improved with shorter surgery times which meant that Derek would had to cut to see the extent of the damage without the CT. After talking to the patient and his wife, Meredith came to a conclusion. Lightheadedness. He had to brace himself to get out of bed. Something caused him to lose consciousness and fall down the stairs with a nail gun. it had to be a brain tumour. She was sure of it. But Derek was the attending and he called the shots which immensely frustrated her when he told her that he would focus on removing the nails first and dismissed her prognosis.

Jackson and Meredith were chosen to scrub in the surgery to observe but Meredith was not satisfied. She wanted her second board in Neuro and was itching to join the action but held herself back. Jackson was not faring any better, which was also noticed by Chief Webber who was giving a lecture while Dr Shepherd focused on the surgery, pulling the nails out one-by-one.

Fortunately for Jorge, he recovered from surgery without any damage to his optic nerve so Dr Shepherd brought him in for an MRI.

"Damn, I didn't want to be right. Midline near the hypothalamus, a tumour," Meredith stared intently at the MRI, not noticing the confused but appraising look Derek was giving her.

It sucks being an intern ~


	3. Interns and Attendings don't mix

**Second Time Around**

Summary: Meredith Grey and Jackson Avery were prodigies in General Surgery, having graduated early from medical school and being the youngest attendings in history. Yet, they were always shadowed by their Grey and Avery names and were feared by people their own age who were only intern. So they decided for change in Seattle.

* * *

 _A/N: **To all the reviewers who are worried about other pairings, like I mentioned before I've already written the story till chapter 10 and it's under revision. I have no intentions on changing the pairings. SO it is a MerDer fic.**_

 _ **And thanks MusicWithinMe for pointing out my mistake.**_

* * *

 **Chapter 3: Interns and Attendings don't mix**

"Another great surgery Dr Grey, Dr Avery, Dr Webber," Ben Warren smiled as they exited the OR. "You guys make me want to switch to general surgery."

The three doctors shared a laugh, it was the third surgery they shared together that week which was pretty rare considering that it was hard to even do one surgery a week with their tight schedule as interns. But Chief Webber had to pull this emergency surgery because of a mistake made by Dr Burke years back to prevent all the lawsuit nightmares that were to follow. Additionally, Webber had to suspend Dr Burke for a while because of it, which meant that they were short of hands on deck.

Fortunately for them, no one seemed to mind or even realised their disappearance because Alex Karev had posted a bunch of posters from Izzie's modelling days all around the intern lockers which was the main gossip for the day.

And after the gossips died down a little, Izzie announced that she wanted to throw a party because her boyfriend was coming to town. Jackson didn't mind and Meredith only relented after all the baking she did that could probably feed the entire hospital for a week.

The day wouldn't be normal without Derek's persistent courting, "Let me take you out to dinner tonight. Real food, waiters, big chunks of carbs in a basket. Forget about the party.".

How many people were invited to this party? "You know about the party?"

Derek ignored her questioned and leaned closer to her, his voice dropping an octave lower, "Your friends will be at the party. You and I can be alone somewhere else."

"How do you know about the party?"

"Thanks for not inviting me, by the way. That felt good. Dinner, think about dinner, perfect opportunity," great, Derek managed to dodge her question.

Meredith finally found Cristina, "They're everywhere. All the time. Izzie's all perky, and George does this thing where he's helpful and considerate, they share food and they say things and they move things, and they breathe. They're like happy. And now this party?"

Cristina said simply, "Kick them out."

"I can't kick them out. They just moved in. I asked them to move in."

"So what, you're just going to repress everything into some deep dark twisted place until one day you snap and kill them?" Cristina asked and Meredith nodded. "This is why we are friends."

As she pulled up the driveway, she did not expect the entire hospital to show up at her house for the party, trauma, peds, plastics, cardio, nurses, even Bailey was there. "Izzie, I'm gonna kill you."

All Meredith wanted to do was climb in bed. The long hours as an intern and the secret surgeries were taking a toll on her body. She tried to find Izzie, but no one had seen her. Great, the party in full swing but the main character was not here. Jackson caught up to her, knowing that his best friend needed the rest but instead handed her tequila bottle.

"Screw this," Meredith took the offered bottle and joined Cristina. Jackson, George, and Alex, letting loose, drinking, dancing and playing cards. Cristina managed to snatch Meredith's bottle away before she got too drunk.

After his surgery, Derek drove to the familiar house where he first met Meredith. He noticed Meredith outside, swaying drunkenly and drinking. Despite her being drunk, Derek couldn't help but feel attracted to the woman before him, "You know, in some states, you could get arrested for that." Meredith walked towards him. "So you blew me off for a bottle of tequila. Tequila's no good for ya. It doesn't call. It doesn't write. It isn't nearly as much fun to wake up to."

With the lowered inhibition from being drunk, all rational thought was forgotten as she smiled and pulled him in for a kiss. Her tone lowered as she stared intently into his dreamy eyes, "Take me for a ride, Derek."

Meredith straddled Derek in the driver's seat, "You know, it sounds like the party's winding down. Listen to me. We should probably sneak inside, though. We can have seconds inside."

"We've done enough sneaking for the night. It was good sneaking, but enough sneaking," Meredith stubbornly replied, leaning in to capture his lips once more.

"Yeah, I'd say we're pretty good sneakers," Derek managed to say between kisses.

They were interrupted by the sound of tapping on the window. Meredith froze, it was Dr. Bailey. "You mind moving this tail wagon? You're blocking me in."

"Apparently not good enough," Derek muttered while Meredith hid her face from all the shame she was experiencing.

Meredith scrambled to get dress and exit the car while Derek moved the car, to see her amused looking best friend suppressing his laughter. "Shut up," Meredith called out, knowing that her best friend probably saw the entire exchange.

"You know, Bailey's gonna give you hell right? She may only be a resident, but she really scares me. Even Webber's afraid of her," Jackson did not even bother hiding his laugh.

Meredith groaned.

* * *

It had been a week and Meredith had been successful in avoiding Derek Shepherd. Dr Bailey on the other hand, no longer acknowledging her presence, simply choosing to ignore her, so she was the attending on scut duty and hadn't been in the OR with the exception of her surgeries with Jackson. Meredith and Jackson got out of the car and unfortunately for Meredith, Derek car was parked beside them.

"Crap. I'm late." Meredith dashed before Derek had the chance to say anything.

"You're avoiding me…" Jackson shifted uncomfortably, having the unfortunate luck of standing between the two of them in the elevator, "Ok, are we going to talk about this? About us and Bailey and what she saw?"

"I don't need to talk about it. I experienced it, naked," Meredith said exasperatedly which prompted Jackson to laugh at her expense despite the awkward position he was in. He stopped himself when he noticed the glare he was subjected to by both of them.

"This is getting complicated," Derek stated.

"Complicated for me. I'm the intern sleeping with the attending. Bailey isn't speaking to me anymore," Meredith complained.

"Not that that's a bad thing. If I was a better guy, I'd walk away."

"Yes, you would"

"Do you want me to be a better guy?"

"Yes…. No... Crap. I'm late," Meredith said indecisively before swiftly exiting the lift speedily, with Jackson tailing her, "Shepherd goes from glaring at me, to flirting with you in front of me," Jackson teased. Meredith found it weird that Jackson was not chasing Derek away, it was rare for any guy to get his stamp of approval to date her.

As the two of them rushed to the locker rooms to get dressed, Meredith noticed Cristina entering after her. Cristina was never late, she was always an hour early trying to scope out for surgeries. Meredith let it to rest, knowing prying would not get anything out of her friend, instead choosing to ask if they think Bailey had ratted her out. Cristina snapped at her, asking her to shut up. Without a doubt, there was something up with Cristina.

Bailey chastised Jackson and Cristina for being late but blatantly ignored Meredith's misconduct. Meredith could only sigh. She hated to admit it but she prefered when Bailey was breathing fire at her even though it hurt her pride, rather than getting the cold shoulder.

"When we walk in this door, you will maintain decorum. You will not laugh, vomit, or drop your jaw. Are we understood?" Bailey warned her interns.

Never in their entire career had Jackson or Meredith seen such a large tumour. Jackson whispered to Meredith, "As much as I love surgeries, I want out of this one. We'd be the ones holding that thing."

'That thing' as Jackson called it probably weighed a tonne and would take forever to remove. And Meredith had to agree, she definitely did not want to be anywhere near the surgery. And victim number 1 goes to Alex Karev who was in charge of her prepping for the procedure. But knowing her rotten luck these days, she was sure a spot was reserved for her in that OR to resect the tumor.

Bailey led the interns for the remainder of pre-rounds. They entered the next room where a man was struggling to walk, with deep tremors.

Great so much for attempting to avoid McDreamy. "Mr. Levangie, this is Dr. Bailey and her fine staff of surgical interns." Meredith tried to avoid exchanging glances with Derek and Bailey.

George started presenting, "Edward Levangie is a 63-year-old man admitted for pain management for Dyskinesia. He's been stable since last night, and responding to the bolus injections."

"Izzie, possible treatments?" Bailey questioned.

"For Parkinson's disease? Um, deep brain stimulation has shown…"

"Not for Parkinson's, for spinal pain," Derek interrupted but Izzie was unable to answer him.

Noticing Derek glancing at her, urging her to answer, she spoke up, "Intraspinal catheter. That way, he can have constant pain medication."

"Excellent. This is Dr. Black. She's gonna prep you for the procedure and assist," Derek decided before leaving when his pager beeped. Meredith sighed in resignation as she watched Bailey urgently excuse herself to catch up with Derek. As much as Meredith wished to join in more on Neuro surgeries, it would not do her any favour if Bailey hated her and thought she was getting favours for sleeping with an attending.

Derek finally noticed that he was alone in the elevator with Bailey, "Miranda" he acknowledged.

"Excuse me?" Bailey raised her eyebrow and stared at the much taller man.

"Well, that's your name, right? It's on your jacket." For a short woman she sure was intimidating him as she looked smug, "All right, fine. I'll just call you Bailey then."

"You think you're charming in that talented, neurotic, overly moussed hair sort of way, good for you," Bailey accused before placing her arms on her hips, "But if you think I'm going to stand back and watch while you favor her…"

Derek interrupted her, "I don't favor her. She's good. You know, can I point out that, technically, I'm your boss?"

Bailey exited the elevator as the door opened before turning back to address Derek while stopping the doors from closing, "You don't scare me. Look, I'm not going to advertise your extracurricular activities with my intern. However, the next time I see you favoring Meredith Black in any way, I'll make sure she doesn't see the inside of on OR for a month. Just for the sake of balance."

Levangie's daughter tried to get Meredith to persuade her father to get a surgery to treat his disease because he was a candidate for DBS. Unfortunately for her, when she informed Derek about this, he threw her off the case to appease Bailey who was listening in to their conversation. Derek did not like the decision that had caused Meredith to walk away in disappointment and without a fight. "You know they call you the Nazi right?". Bailey simply shrugged it of, "So I've been told.".

And Meredith was right, all Bailey's interns were stuck in the OR holding up the tumor while Burke, Shepherd and Bailey did the resection of the tumor. And unfortunately the woman died on the table.

"I got kicked of the Parkinson's case," Meredith complained as she joined Jackson who was sitting alone having lunch.

"Cristina convinced Burke to let her assist in a coronary bypass."

"Are you insinuating…" Jackson nodded. Meredith was flabbergasted, "And she was accusing me of getting surgeries because of Derek. Look what I got, I got kicked out of Levangie's case."

The two of them grew silent as Cristina approached the table. Trying to hide the guilt of suspecting her friend, Meredith started the conversation to break the awkward silence, "Shepherd first blatantly favors me in front of her and then blatantly dismisses me."

"How do you know he was favoring you? Look, you've got a brain. You got into this program. Just because Shepherd wants to munch your cookies doesn't mean you didn't deserve what you worked for," Cristina complimented her.

"But he's making me look bad. I have to end it. It's over," Meredith declared trying to convince herself more than the entirely unconvinced Cristina.

Filled with determination, Meredith managed to convince Mr Levangie to proceed with DBS for his daughter's sake. Promptly informing Dr. Shepherd, who rushed out of the scrub room, leaving Meredith alone with Bailey. Wanting to get back on her good terms, she tried to explain herself but Bailey clearly told her that she didn't care.

"Really? Oh, well, you sort of seemed to not be talking to me, so I ... "

"You see this, what's happening right here? This is the problem with you sleeping with my boss. Not whether or not you know him before, but how it affects my day. And me standing here talking to you about your sex life affects my day. And the longer this little fling goes on, the more favors you get over the others, who are fighting tooth and nail just to make it through this program without any assistance. When those people start finding out what's going on and they don't want to work with you and talk to you or look at you, and they start bitching and moaning at me, the more it affects my day. So, no, Dr. Black, I don't care what you know, or when you know it. Are we understood?"

Meredith could only sigh in resignation and instead rush out to join Derek in the OR for the DBS procedure. Despite having seen a DBS procedure done before, Meredith was amazed by the finesse displayed by Derek. She only wished she could have an active role in assisting in the surgery but instead chose to be appreciative that at least she got some OR hours in Neuro.

"You did great in there," Derek caught up to Meredith who was leaving the hospital. "Bailey was on the warpath. I was trying to protect you."

"You trying to protect me is why she's on the warpath. You can't do me favors. You can't ask me to scrub in when I haven't earned it. And you can't treat me like crap when I haven't earned that either. I can take care of myself. I got myself into this mess, and I…"

"And you'll get yourself out?" Derek questioned her.

"Of course I will." Meredith was an attending after all, and if anything she could handle a resident, even if that resident was Bailey.

But despite the day's events, she was finally coming to terms to being in a relationship with Derek. "I, um, know this place where there's an amazing view of sunrise over the ferryboats" She pulled a bottle of wine out of her bag

"I have a thing for ferryboats," Derek smiled as he opened the car door for her.

"I remember," The risk of exposing her secrets, seemingly forgotten.

* * *

It had been going on for weeks, Derek would sleepover at Meredith's place. It became a routine, Meredith in bed, naked, her alarm would go off, Derek would cuddle her. She would roll on top of him and wake him up and then Meredith would chase Derek out before any of her roommates would wake up and see him.

"I haven't gotten any sleep in weeks" George complained, letting out a yawn before rubbing his eyes.

"Oh, she could oil the bedsprings as a courtesy or at least buy a padded headboard," Izzie mused.

"Jackson, who's the guy?" George tried to pry, knowing that the other man probably knew who Meredith was sleeping with.

"You think it was just one guy doing all that work?" Izzie smirked as she stared at the horrified faces of the two boys.

"She's my best friend, she's like my sister" / "Yeah, do you mind if I don't think about that?"

Izzie rolled her eyes, boys…

Izzie and George stood by the kitchen doorway, hiding behind the door and managed to catch Derek sneaking out.

"Well, at least we know brain surgery isn't his only skill," Izzie stated.

"They can't be...He's her boss."

"We're late. He's all of our boss. You know she has been scrubbing in a lot lately on his surgeries. You knew about this?" Izzie accused. Jackson simply shrugged, it was not his place to tell after all.

Jackson had told Meredith about Izzie and George's discovery. Throughout the day, George looked like a loss puppy abandoned by his owner, constantly glaring at Derek while Izzie kept making snide remarks at her. That night, Meredith entered the kitchen to look for supper but was surprised to see Izzie was frosting. She must really have been upset with her, "I thought you'd be asleep by now…"

"Yeah, well, I'm not," Izzie noticed Meredith scavenging the fridge, "If you wait a few minutes, you can have a piece of cake. Baked it chock-full of love. Actually, chock-full of unrelenting, all consuming rage and hostility, but it's still tasty."

Meredith sat on the countertop, not knowing what was the best way to reconcile with her friend, "Well, do you want the long, sordid version, or do you want the short version, where I started sleeping with a guy who turned out to be my boss?"

"Neither."

"Izzie, cut me some slack here," Meredith pleaded.

"No. You want to Harvard. You grew up... Look at his house! You know, you walk into the OR, and there isn't anyone who doubts that you should be there. I grew up in a trailer park. I went to state school. I put myself through med school by posing in my underwear. You know, I walk into the OR, and everyone hopes I'm the nurse. Y-you have their respect without even trying, and you're throwing it away for...what? A few good surgeries?" Izzie ranted.

Meredith tried to explain herself, "No. It's not about the surgeries. It's not about getting ahead. "

"Then what? A little hot sex? You're willing to ruin your credibility over that? I mean, Meredith, what the hell are you doing?," Izzie stared at Meredith who rolled her eyes, "Oh, my God. You're falling for him... Damn it, you poor girl."

Meredith spluttered, "I am not. You know, it's just that he's just so...And I'm just...I'm having a hard time."

Not used to seeing this side of Meredith, she smiled, "Wow, you're all, uh, mushy and...warm and full of secret feelings." Izzie gave her a slice of cake.

"I hate you! And your cake."

"My cake is good. So, um, how hot is the sex?" Meredith glared at her friend, "Fine, you can tell me tomorrow."

As Izzie left the kitchen, Meredith noticed Jackson standing by the door, "I am glad you two made up."

Jackson joined Meredith on the countertop, taking a fork to share Meredith's cake.

"Will they hate us?" Meredith asked, knowing Jackson knew exactly what she was asking.

"Maybe… I don't know, Meredith, I don't know…"

Meredith let her head rest on Jackson shoulder and held Jackson's hand, squeezing it, "If the truth ever comes out, we'd be their bosses anyway."

"Come on Mer, finish up the cake. We don't want to keep Warren and Bokhee waiting."

Meredith perked up at the thought of surgery. Surgery always cheered her up.


	4. To good to be true

**Second Time Around**

Summary: Meredith Grey and Jackson Avery were prodigies in General Surgery, having graduated early from medical school and being the youngest attendings in history. Yet, they were always shadowed by their Grey and Avery names and were feared by people their own age who were only intern. So they decided for change in Seattle.

* * *

 **Chapter 4: To good to be true**

It had been weeks since Derek been staying over at Meredith's place, with the exception on days where Meredith had her surgeries. Meredith would claim she was too tired to meet him, hoping that Derek would not question anytime soon. There was only a few occasions where she got an emergency surgery and had no choice but to sneak out and sneak back in before Derek woke up. There was once Meredith had to lie to him to say that Jackson wanted to get for rounds early because the surgery time extended. As guilty as she felt, one morning when she woke up, watching Derek apply deodorant, getting dressed and brushing his teeth, she realised that she had been sleeping with Derek nearly every night, yet she barely knew the man outside of work.

Meredith tried to breach the topic while Derek was brushing his teeth, "So let's go sleep at your house tonight. I mean, why are we always sleeping at my house? Do you even have one?"

"One what?" Derek caressed her cheeks before leaving the bathroom.

Meredith found it suspicious that Derek was purposely avoiding the subject, "A house. With a closet. With your stuff in it. Your personal stuff. Do you even have one of those?"

As Derek and Meredith entered the kitchen, Derek greeted the other 3 house occupants.

"You know, I like it here. You said so yourself, you liked having your things around, sleeping in your own bed," He was definitely hiding something. Derek got the cereal and a bowl out.

"You're like a health nut, aren't ya? You eat muesli every morning," George noticed.

"No, I don't," Derek refuted, confused.

Izzie joined George in agreement, "Ok, the muesli thing, you do. The last seven days, at least."

Sudden realisation dawned on Derek, "Oh, come on. I haven't been here for a whole week. Have I?"

Meredith eyed him, "See? Even they think it's weird."

Even joining Spinal Stroke Surgery with Derek did not stop her parade to pester him into telling her more about himself. Derek wanted to label their relationship like that of those who exchange keys and leave toothbrush over, but Meredith said that she needed a reason to believe in their relationship. And after a few days, Derek finally relented, and brought her on a ferryboat to a forest.

"Where are we?"

"Shh, shh. I'm gonna tell you." Derek led her further before stopping to face her, "All right. My mother's maiden name, Maloney. I have four sisters. I have, uh, nine nieces. Five nephews. I like coffee ice cream, single-malt scotch, occasionally a good cigar. I like to fly fish. And I cheat when I do the crossword puzzle on Sunday. And I never dance in public. Um, favorite novel, The Sun Also Rises. Favorite band, The Clash. My favorite color is blue. I don't like light blue, indigo. The scar right here on my forehead, that's why I don't ride motorcycles anymore. And I live in that trailer. All this land is mine. I have no idea what I'm gonna do with it. So that's it. That's all you've earned for now. The rest you're just...just gonna have to take on faith."

Derek took a deep breath in anticipation of Meredith response. Meredith took a few steps toward the trailer and reached her hand out for him and they walk into the trailer, finally spending a night at Derek's place.

* * *

Despite opening himself up to Meredith and strengthening their relationship, there was a slight strain in their relationship that they both tried to ignore. The first being Derek receiving frequent calls but always ignoring them. The second being, Meredith's occasional unexplained night disappearance which slowly got noticed by Derek the longer they were together but there was an unspoken rule not to breach each other's privacy.

While Derek was still sleeping, Meredith answered a call from her mother, which woke Derek up so she hung up immediately.

"Oh, my God. Who is calling you at this hour?" Derek rubbed his eyes and turned to face her. "It's a wrong number."

When they finally got up, they noticed Izzie banging on the bathroom door, but chose to ignore her. Derek's phone rang, he looked at it but did not answer.

"Aren't you gonna get that? It might be the hospital," Meredith asked.

"It's not. Breakfast?" Derek avoided answer the question, and as much as she wanted to know, she avoiding prying for more.

* * *

Derek was in the gallery watching Chief Webber perform a colectomy surgery with Bailey, Meredith and Jackson.

"There's too much damage. We'll have to remove most of the colon instead of a local resection," Richard claimed.

He tried to stitch the colon up and struggled to do it. Richard instructed Bailey, "You gotta push it up." but he tried and missed again.

There was clearly something wrong, Meredith narrowed her eyes. A surgeon with as much experience as Richard would not make such a mistake suturing.

"More suture. And what's with these damn lights in here," Richard commanded, Jackson readjusted the lights for him.

They watched him struggle a few times and dropped a retractor, Bailey not offering any help, probably afraid to offend the older man, Meredith spoke up, "Chief, would it be ok if I gave it a try?"

Bailey looked at her as if she grew another head and was about to say something before Richard stepped aside to give her the sutures, "Finish up, Dr Black". Whatever Bailey had to say, she could not because she could not believe her Chief would trust an intern to take over, albeit it being mainly sutures. And Derek in the observation deck had the exact same thoughts. But the resident and attending were thoroughly impressed, having never seen an intern suture with such grace and efficiency that rivalled experienced attendings, Derek suddenly likening what he was seeing to that of another surgeon he met in Boston. Meredith stopped herself from trying to complete the surgery because she did not want to be subjected to more suspicion by Bailey and Derek and instead pretending to be unsure on her next move so that Bailey could continue from where she stopped.

After the surgery, Jackson and Meredith followed Richard to his office.

"Your mother called this morning, and wanted to know why you hung up on her," Jackson informed Meredith.

"She called me too about the awards, she wants you to be there" Richard added.

"Will anyone in this hospital be going, do I need to go in disguise?" Meredith asked.

"I'll get wigs and masks for both of us. Better yet, let's get plastic surgery," Jackson replied sarcastically.

"No one's been nominated from the hospital, so probably not. Eventually people will find out about the both of you and you guys will need to prepare yourselves," Richard lectured.

"Speaking of preparing yourself, could you explain what happened in the OR earlier, I almost blew my cover," Meredith watched as Richard's face morphed into one of a pained expression, "You had a temporary vision loss, didn't you. Don't forget that I was considering a neuro fellowship".

"You dropped a retractor," Derek accused as he barged into Richard's office, not noticing the two 'interns' in the office leaning on the back wall.

"Fine. A few weeks ago, I was operating, and the vision in my right eye became blurry. After a few hours, it was fine. It's come back again," Richard confessed to his head of Neurosurgery.

"Did you have it checked out?" Derek questioned.

"The examination was normal. My ophthalmologist tells me I'm just getting older. But you know what a decline in my visual acuity can mean," Richard tried to dismiss the topic.

"I'll set up some tests."

"Shep, I know how the rumor mill runs around here. Let's just keep this to ourselves," Richard requested.

"Absolutely. Yeah…" As Derek was turned to leave the office, he finally noticed the Meredith and Jackson. Derek faced the Chief in confusion, "I thought you want to keep it to ourselves."

"They came to me to express their concern," Richard tried to defend them.

"Well since you guys know, I guess you can help me out. Can you keep a secret?" Derek asked before leaving, not waiting for their answer.

"Better than you think," Jackson smirked. That was a close call.

* * *

Meredith's roommate, George who had recently been sleeping with Olivia the nurse, had contracted Syphilis after having been diagnosed by Alex. Meredith had been the one to give the shot to his rear, while the other interns mocked and teased relentlessly as they watched. Similar to how fast gossip travelled around the hospital, so did Syphilis because apparently, everyone slept with everyone. And so Richard had to round up all the staff, so that his secretary could give them the talk about bananas and condoms.

Derek ceased the opportunity to bring Richard to get an MRI while everyone was busy with the sex ed class.

"I'll put a team together," Derek said as he informed Richard about the tumor.

"All my people only. And I still want this kept under wraps. The vultures will be circling soon enough," Richard grumbled.

"Aren't I one of the vultures?," Derek asked cheekily.

"Why do you think I want to keep an eye on you? Get going. We're doing this tonight," Richard commanded.

After having informed Jackson and Meredith to about the tumor pressing against Richard's optic nerve, he contracted Meredith's help to recruit the last member of the team, Bailey, while Jackson was to check on Richard.

Derek ran up to Bailey and Meredith in the hall when she just told Bailey about the surgery, "How goes out special super secret silent sunset surgery? I've been practicing that."

"You have too much time on your hands," Bailey shook her head in disbelief at her the Head of Neuro, before turning to Meredith, "Uh, tell the chief I'll be there. Just let me know when and where. I'm in."

Meredith nodded as Bailey left and finally turned to Derek, "Are you nervous?"

"It's a complicated surgery. I make one mistake, I end a fellow surgeon's career, my mentor's career. Oh, no, I'm not nervous," Derek sighed as he walked down the hallway alongside Meredith.

"So just for the record…" As Meredith's voice fell into a whisper, Derek leaned in to hear what she had to say,"...you'd tell me if I need to get tested, right? I mean we had no rules about being exclusive."

"You think I have syphilis? When would I have time to go out and get syphilis? You're a handful enough as it is, and besides, we're like, practically a condom ad."

Meredith was relieved and reassured that they were somewhat 'exclusive', "But no more glow-in-the-dark ones."

"You see? There's nothing to worry about. Maybe we should, you know make some rules, I mean... Just for the record... I like the glow-in-the-dark ones," Derek smiled smugly before his facial expression turned sour when he saw the caller ID of his phone and walked away from Meredith.

But there were still too many secrets between them. Richard was right about preparing themselves for people to find out. Meredith wanted their relationship to work. If she told Derek, maybe he would feel compelled to confide in her, like the frequent mysterious phone calls he'd been consistently ignoring.

While the 'special super secret silent sunset surgery' with the locked up the gallery proceeded, Cristina and Izzie had stolen a body to conduct an illegal autopsy after having discovered from Jackson that Bailey would be occupied.

Derek successfully removed the tumor and praised his team for a job well done.

"Do you think the optic nerve is damaged?" Jackson questioned the older man.

"If it is, when he wakes up, he'll... He'll be blind … forever, " Bailey replied morbidly.

"Fox, Page Stevens and Yang. Tell them I want them covering both your patients. I need you to stay and monitor the chief," Derek ordered.

Meredith noticed Jackson fidgeting before realising why and instead volunteered herself, "Cristina and Izzie, um...I think they're already swamped with labs. They had to check on some labs. I could cover for both of us, we don't need two people watching Chief Webber…." As much as Meredith disagreed with what the other two interns were doing, they were still her friends. It was strange to her, because Jackson was previously the only one she'd cover for and feel compelled to protect. The interns here in Seattle had really wormed their way into Meredith's life.

Bailey raised her brow. She was doomed, Bailey knew for sure. "Oh, you are lying. I know you're lying. You know how I know? Cause you're a bad liar! I hate a bad liar. I know exactly where they are," Bailey said accusingly before storming off to lecture her two wayward interns.

At the end of the day, Derek caught up to Meredith. "Long day," he stated as he followed in step with Meredith, who merely just nodded. "Somewhere out this is a steak with your name on it and maybe a bottle of wine."

Meredith smiled at him, "This is why I keep you around.".

"So we need to talk," Derek stated.

Meredith dreaded this conversation but she knew eventually she had to tell him, "Wine first, talk later. I've got something to tell you too."

Derek teased, "You trying to, uh, get me drunk so you can take advantage of me?"

As they turned to leave, a stunning red headed woman was standing there causing Derek to stop in his tracks. A confused Meredith turned to see the wide eyed Derek, who turned to Meredith with so much guilt expressed in his normally dreamy eyes, "Meredith, I am so sorry."

Meredith was thoroughly confused, what was going on? The woman walked over before Derek acknowledged her Addison, "What are you doing here?"

"Well, you'd know if you'd bothered to return any one of my phone calls," Was Derek cheating? Addison turn to Meredith, and extending her hand out to shake hand, "Hi. I'm Addison Shepherd."

God, was she caught in an affair, "Shepherd?"

Addison pointed at Meredith, "And you must be the woman who's been screwing my husband."

Great, she was Derek's affair. Here she was willing to tell the man her secret, when all this time, he had been hiding something far worse.

"What are you doing here," Derek said with so much venom that it stunned Meredith.

Addison huffed in indignation, "What are you doing here? You just pick up and leave everything? Your house, your practice, your friends? You had a life in Manhattan... And now you have a girlfriend in Seattle. She seems sweet. She's young. That whole wide-eyed, ooh he's-a-brain-surgeon thing happening, but still sweet. Which was what you were going for, right? The anti-Addison?"

Meredith felt severely uncomfortable being the topic of conversation between the married couple while she was still there but did not know how to make an exit. Derek glared at her, "If you came out here to try and win me back, forget about it."

"I did. I flew all the way across the country to reminisce over wedding photos, get drunk, fall into bed, and make you realize you can't live without me. Relax. Derek, I'm here for work. I'm helping the TTTS case you guys admitted last week and from Richard's briefing. Richard asked me to come. Didn't he tell you," Addison mocked before leaving the pair.

Derek realised Meredith presence beside him and tried to reach out to her, but Meredith shrugged of his hand from her shoulder as she sped away to her car. "Meredith… I can explain…" He pleaded as he caught up to her.

Meredith could tell from their conversation that the dysfunctional married couple who just had a spat before her was on the edge of a potential divorce. But all rational thought was thrown out the window. They were together for months and yet the topic of marriage was never brought up. She was having an affair with an adulterer, "No Derek… don't… Explain? You know when you should have explained? The night we met in the bar. Before any of the rest of it. Yeah, that would have been a good time to discuss it. You accused me of sleeping with you when you thought I was married to Jackson, when you were the one committing adultery. Do you really know how I feel? Somehow I doubt that. Because if you did, you would shut up, and you would turn around and go back inside, because you would realize that I am this close to getting in my car and running you down in the parking lot!"

At Joe's, Joe approached a beaten looking Meredith at the counter, "I know that look. It'll be one of two things. Either your boss is giving you hell or your boyfriend is. Which is it?"

Meredith downed another shot before replying, "Both My boyfriend is my boss, which was a problem. But not as big a problem as the fact that my boyfriend has a wife."

As the George, Jackson and Cristina joined her for drinks, Meredith interrupted their bickering, "Let's play a game of whose life sucks the most. I'll win. I always win."

Cristina warned, "No, you don't want to play with me."

Meredith laughed humorlessly, "Oh, I do. I'll even go first. Derek's married."

George spat his beer out, beer is dripping from your nostrils. George scrambled to get to the bathroom to get himself cleaned up. Meredith smirked, "Told you I'd win. Derek is married. As in pigheaded, adulterous, liar married. Nothing you could say could top that."

Cristina shifted uncomfortably before revealing, "No, you didn't win. I'm pregnant. I win.". Meredith felt Jackson staring at her.

"It's Burke's isn't it?" Meredith asked as she held Cristina's hand. Cristina stuttered, "How'd… How'd you know?"

"I just know," Meredith smiled warmly, "What are you going to do?"

"Look, you know what happens to pregnant interns. I'm not switching to the vagina squad or spending my life popping zits. I'm too talented. Surgery's my life," She preached. Meredith sighed, that means Cristina had decided on abortion.

Meredith, Jackson and Cristina returned to the hospital and walked up to a desk where George and Izzie are standing. Izzie looked up at them, puzzled, "Why are you back here tonight, don't you have a date with McDreamy?"

George snickered, "More like McMarried".

"McWhat?" Meredith ignored Izzie, "I came to check on a patient."

Derek suddenly walked in to check on the same patient as Meredith. "... I need some additional patient history, overnight labs, and a cerebral angio," Derek briefed the interns and tried to hand the chart to Meredith.

"I'm drunk," she stated, dismissing him, before walking away. George grabbed the chart instead

"Meredith," Derek called out, trying to follow Meredith but the other interns stepped in his way as if forming a protective barrier around her.

"McBastard," Izzie coughed out.

* * *

Weeks passed, Burke was appointed Interim Chief of Surgery while Webber was recovering. Burke was shaky in the beginning and tried to get to get hold of the knows and gossips in the hospital. He even asked Bailey who 'McDreamy' was which only got a snappy reply, "I'm Dr. McDreamy. I'm tall, handsome. I like to lean against things and ponder the difficulties of dating beautiful women. I'm trying to be a surgeon here!" as she glared at Derek Shepherd passing by.

Meredith was actively avoiding Derek with all the other intern's help, which was hard to do. Derek was pretty persistent in stalking her to make amends. Soon the whole hospital found out about Lady Shepherd's wife and their rocky relationship, after all the two of them always had their spats in the hallways. Derek made no effort to hide his antagonism between her and Derek. He openly called her Satan after all.

And to add to Meredith's misery, Addison had taken a certain 'liking' to Meredith, requesting Meredith as her intern frequently, on her case, much to Derek's chagrin. Piling her with work, making her do even the nurse's job.

When she finally got a break, she visited Chief Webber's room, to see Jackson having dinner with Richard. Meredith joined them by his bed and pulled out an apple.

"I heard about you, Shepherd and his wife. While I don't condone your relationship, how are you feeling?" Richard asked as she took a bite into her apple

Jackson laughed and answered instead, "Meredith's been trying to avoid the Shepherds, but lady Shepherd has made it her life goal to break Meredith and drown her in work."

Meredith groaned as she buried her face in her hands. " I am this close to telling her to shove it and not to mess with Meredith Grey. I am an attending for god sake."

Richard chuckled. "Well, fellowships are always opened to the both of you," he teased.

"No, not now. I have enough headaches for now, I don't need more. You know what, I need a drink…" Meredith finish the last of her apple before leaving. "One glass only, Mere. We have a case," Jackson called out to her.

Cristina entered Joe's and sat down next to Meredith. "The clinic has a policy." Meredith looked up from her glass to observe her second closest friend in Seattle. "They wouldn't let me confirm my appointment unless I designated an emergency contact person. Someone to be there, just in case, and to help me home, you know, after. Anyway, I put your name down. That's why I told you I'm pregnant. You're my 'person.'"

Meredith was stunned but smiled endearingly, "I am?"

"Yeah, you are. Whatever... He dumped me," Meredith noticed the look of despair on Cristina's face and laid her head on Cristina's shoulder, wrapping an arm around her. "You realize this constitutes hugging?"

Meredith rolled her eyes, "Shut up. I'm your 'person.'" She wanted to have another person to confide in and Cristina had earned her place as a best friend beside Jackson. She steeled herself, maybe it was time to let her in. Meredith grabbed the glass Cristina was drinking causing her to cry out in indignation before dragging her out of the bar.

"I can trust you right," Meredith asked waiting for Cristina's reassuring nod. Meredith smiled before instructing her to meet her at OR5 at 10.30pm. Noticing Cristina's confusion, Meredith grinned before continuing, "Trust me, you need the cheering up. Make sure you're scrubbed in by then."

"Is this some kind of joke or you earning favours from another attending. Because I don't believe it's any of the Shepherds. So who is it?"

Meredith chuckled before skipping away, "Bowel obstruction, Don't be late Cristina."

Cristina arrived into the OR and was surprised to see only an anesthesiologist and a scrub nurse who were also equally shocked at her presence. "I'm sorry this is a private procedure, I would have to ask you to leave," The man said sternly.

"Don't worry, Warren. I invited her," Cristina whipped her head to the sound of the voice and noticed Meredith and Jackson clad in dark blue scrubs entering the OR.

Meredith took point on the table while Jackson greeted her before standing across her.

"Woah Mere, Jackson, isn't this illegal, wearing those scrubs. Mere, I said you're my person and I appreciate you trying to cheer me up with surgery but we're interns. I am not about to lose my medical license," Ben was laughing at a freaked out Cristina.

"Don't worry Dr Yang," Ben pointed to the observatory deck where Chief Webber was watching them in a wheelchair.

Jackson patted to the space beside him beckoning the stupefied looking intern to stand beside him, "I am sure Meredith invited you to join in the surgery and not stand there. Come on."

Cristina joined to stand by Jackson side, not knowing what to expect or even comprehend the situation she was in. Cristina noticed the X-rays and finally spoke up, "Are those Judy Dolls."

"10 of them," Meredith replied. She held up the scalpel that was given to her by Bokhee. "Alright, guys, let's welcome our guest Dr Yang to assist us. It's always an honour working with you guys. Let's save Mr Hubble's life, shall we?" Meredith smiled at her team.

All preconceived thoughts and reservation was set aside in Cristina's mind. Surgery first. Even though Cristina mostly held the suction and assisted in removing the dolls while Jackson and Meredith led the surgery, she had never seen two surgeons so in-sync before. She was mesmerized by their grace and fluidity that she had forgotten that the two of them were 'interns'.

She was pulled out from her train of thoughts when she recognised Jackson's voice, "Great job everyone." Cristina had so many questions but she could not find the words to voice out her questions.

"It's always an honour, Dr Grey, Dr Avery," Dr Warren and Bokhee slowly exited the OR, leaving the remaining three to their privacy.

"Dr Grey? Dr Avery?" Cristina couldn't believe her ears and asked in disbelief, "... As in Ellis Grey and Harper Avery?"

Jackson crossed his arms, leaving Meredith to do the talking. Meredith gave a timid nod, bracing herself for whatever rage Cristina was about to bestow upon them but was surprised by a force that caused her to take a step back from Cristina lunging at her with a hug.

"This is so amazing… You guys were amazing. I've never seen surgery done so flawlessly before. I can't believe it… my friends… you guys are the Avery-Grey aren't you. Oh my god… Oh my god… Marry me!" the two of them were amused as Cristina carried on rambling in excitement.

"I am glad you're not upset with us for keeping this from you, but we're trying to keep this down," Meredith interrupted Cristina.

"Oh my lips are sealed, only if you guys let me in on more of your surgeries. I think I might betray cardio for general. I want all the details, you have to tell me everything," Cristina was drooling. Meredith's problems with the Shepherds didn't seem to big anymore, she was glad that she had one more ally in a circle. Meredith looked up to the observation deck to see the Chief smiling at them, the intercom turned on.

"That can be arranged."

* * *

 _A/N:_ _A couple of you mentioned about who will find out about Meredith and Jackson first. I had every intention on making Cristina and one other person find out first. But right now I actually have written two different versions of future chapters with different people finding out (At one point I even thought about letting everyone find out), and I realized the entire dynamics change depending on who finds out. Now I am a bit at a loss on which version to choose but I don't want to spoil the story. Do let me know what you guys think and any suggestions you might have on who should find out first. ^^_

 _Thanks for all the reviews and special thanks MusicWithinMe for pointing out my mistake in the previous chapter. If I have made any other mistake, feel free to point out because I haven't proof read my writtings._


	5. You can't keep a secret forever

**Second Time Around**

Summary: Meredith Grey and Jackson Avery were prodigies in General Surgery, having graduated early from medical school and being the youngest attendings in history. Yet, they were always shadowed by their Grey and Avery names and were feared by people their own age who were only intern. So they decided for change in Seattle.

* * *

 **Chapter 5: You can't keep a secret forever**

Meredith was starting to regret telling Cristina about her secret. Meredith loved her best friend and jogging was a stress relief for her but to have Cristina joining her and pestering her about surgeries stories during her alone time was slowly starting to get on her nerves. Cristina started panting as she was slowly starting to feel exhaustion whereas Meredith was still energized, "Endorphins are good, they elevate your mood."

Cristina stopped running and Meredith started running circles around her. Meredith suddenly called herself stupid while Cristina labelled her as 'Slutty mistress'. Meredith snapped back with 'pregnant whore'.

Cristina sarcastically said, "Sleeping with our bosses was a great idea."

Meredith stopped running, exhausted, says, "You know technically, he is not my boss, I am a General Surgery Attending. Even as much as I want to try out for a fellowship in Neuro, I will never work under that man... You know what's ruined for me? Ferry boats, I used to love ferry boats. And Derek's got a thing for ferry boats. Now every time I see a freaking ferry boat...".

Cristina jumped in to interrupt her, "You know what's ruined for me? Coronary artery bypass grafts AND aortic aneurysms."

* * *

The interns were having lunch when Izzie stormed in with a newspaper in hand, "Ellis Grey is officially McAwesome! She won her third Harper Avery!"

Alex and George snatched the newspaper from Izzie's hands to read the article. "I was hoping to see her daughter's photo," Alex let go of the newspaper to let George have it.

"For someone who is a legend's daughter and a great surgeon herself isn't it weird that we've never seen how she looks like?" Izzie suggested.

"Maybe she's ugly," Alex suggested, prompting Jackson to nearly choke on his food while Cristina spat out her drink. Meredith glared her two best friends.

Izzie and Alex stared at their odd reaction but their attention was averted by George who was still reading the article, "Says here, that she ran away from the ceremony…"

"Like I said, ugly," Alex said as if it was a fact. Meredith simply smiled bitterly. Great, not only did people think she was bad looking but probably humiliated herself and her mother.

 _Flashback - Night Before at the Harper Avery Award Ceremony_

" _Is it too late to run?" Meredith asked Jackson, freaking out as she stood at the entrance of the hall dressed in black lacy gown and Jackson in a tux._

" _Come on Meredith, I am more afraid of our mothers," Jackson replied as he extended his arm to her, Meredith linking arms, leading them to where their mothers who were swamped by doctors._

" _This is my son, Jackson Avery and Ellis's daughter Meredith Grey." Catherine Avery and Ellis Grey had been visited by the biggest people in medicine and introducing their work and children. It was exhausting having to smile and be nice to so many people. Before she knew it, Jackson had escaped her side and the reason why was standing in front of her. Maggie Webber_

" _Meredith, why did Jackson run?" the lady asked?_

" _You know why," Meredith pointed out to her sister. "I hope you're doing well in your medical school. You know, Richard's been stuck in a bed after we remove his tumour. It would be good for you to stop ignoring his calls. You can't hate him forever. Forever is a really long time," Meredith called out before walking away._

 _While Catherine headed to the stage to start the ceremony while Ellis sat at the nominees table, Meredith escaped to sit at the invited guest table where Jackson was to avoid being with her half sister after their awkward conversation._

" _Is this seat taken?" Meredith asked the lady who was sitting alone out of courtesy even though she knew there was an empty seat at Jackson's table. The lady counted the seats at the table before shaking her head._

" _I saw you coming from the front… Who are you here for?" the lady asked. Meredith pointed to her mother. "Are you Dr Grey, Ellis's daughter?"_

 _Meredith nodded before extending her hand. "Please call me Meredith, this is Jackson Avery," Meredith introduced her friend, knowing they had not been formally introduced._

" _It's an honour to meet you guys. I've heard a lot about you two. I'm Kathleen Adler. I am a psychiatrist, New York Presbyterian," the lady shook the Meredith's arm._

" _You must be Dr Adam Adler's wife. Congratulations to the both of you. I've heard about Dr Adler's work on gene mapping, it is great. Why are you sitting here though?" Meredith congratulated before asking._

" _Thank you. No need to be modest, Dr Grey made a medical breakthrough and I am certain she's winning. I assume you're here because you want out of the spotlight…" Meredith grinned, never mess with a psychiatrist. "I am here because my brother and sisters wanted to come for moral support and we all can't fit at the front."_

" _There they are." Meredith glanced at the doorway, noticing 3 gorgeous lady and a dashing looking man._

" _Oh, god. What's McAss doing here?" Jackson muttered under his breath. Meredith was freaking out noticing the 4 figures probably trying to find the table where they were seated at._

" _They're doctors too, my brother's…"_

" _Excuse me, I need to go to the washroom," Meredith interrupted the lady before pulling her friend away, dashing to another exit._

 _The 4 figures finally reached the table to join Kathlene at the table, having seen Meredith and Jackson's departure._

" _Who were they, Kathleen?" the man asked._

 _Kathleen stared at the backs of her two acquaintance escaping the hall. She had noticed their panicked faces before their speedy exit. It was as if they were running from one of her siblings. "That was Dr Grey and Dr Avery. Do you guys know them?"_

 _The 3 ladies shook their head, while the man simply replied, "Mass Gen, worked together on a Conjoined Twin Separation Surgery." 'So they were trying to hide from, Derek…' Kathleen thought. "They seemed nice. Are you guys friends?"_

" _No, only met them in the OR. They were great, definitely met up to all the hype about the Avery-Grey Duo." Strange… why were they avoiding her brother…_

 _Meanwhile outside the main hall, Meredith and Jackson were catching his breath outside the main hall._

" _That was not suspicious at all, Mere," Jackson said sarcastically._

" _Did you have a better idea?" Meredith rolled her eyes at him. "You think he saw us?"_

 _Jackson shook his head before his attention was brought to a TV monitor, with her mother holding onto the Harper Avery trophy. "That's great, she won," Jackson pulled Meredith in a hug, congratulating her._

" _... It would also not have been possible without the help of my daughter who helped in the research. Dr Grey please come up here," Meredith froze._

" _What do I do?" Meredith panicked as she glanced to her friend's pale face. "Dr Grey… Dr Grey…" She was freaking out as she heard her mother repeated her name, looking for her._

 _Jackson grabbed her arm and bolted to his car._

" _She's going to kill me!"_

Back to present time:

"You have got to tell me what happened," Cristina whispered to her before suddenly collapsing. Meredith and the interns tried to calling out to her but there was no response. Unfortunately for Cristina, having been rushed to the ER was how Burke found out about her pregnancy. Meredith initially thought it was due to exhaustion because of her pushing Cristina while they were running that morning but she instead, had a fallopian tube burst due to an ectopic pregnancy. Addison offered to help to remove her fallopian tube and terminate the pregnancy.

Derek approached the worried Meredith and explained that Addison offering to help did not mean she was going to stay at SGH, saying that she was a good doctor and that he was not trying to defend her, "She gave me divorce papers, Meredith. She filed. All I have to do is sign, and I'm free, … we're free…" Meredith was somewhat relieved as Derek reassured her that there was nothing to think about the matter and all he had to to read and that he would sign it by that night. Meredith thought that if they finally got back together, maybe it was time to tell Derek about her secret.

Meredith shared the good news to a recovering Cristina who was bored, flipping through charts that she had snatched from the nurses station. Throughout the day, Meredith and all the other interns had to pop by into Cristina's room to help her with her overbearing mother as well as entertain her best friend who was always trying to sneak off to the OR observatory.

That night when she was having dinner with Derek, she found the unsigned divorce papers spilling out of his briefcase which prompted her to storm out of Joe's. She was very upset that he had yet to sign the papers. And she had already steeled herself to tell him her secret.

Derek realising she saw the unsigned papers rushed to Meredith's house, knocking aggressively, She opened the front door and shouted, "WHAT?"

He paused, thinking before saying, "Oh, I usually just say Meredith and then you yell at me. I haven't thought past that point. I actually didn't have anything planned." Exasperated, She hit him repeatedly with her purse.

Derek tried to shield himself with his arms, "Ow! What is that?". Meredith exclaimed, "Seriously? SERIOUSLY!" before slamming the door on his face.

Meredith burst into George's room and shouts, "Seriously!" where she saw Izzie was already lying beside the boy. Next moment all three of them were in bed together with George sandwiched between them, George complaining, "This is a very small bed." Jackson came in the room having heard the commotion to join the three at the base of the bed.

Izzie said, "I look fantastic. I shaved my legs!"

The boys looked puzzled by her statement, and Meredith replied, "Karev" having heard from Alex who she had grown close to as friends. Despite all the 'frat boy' behaviour, Meredith saw pass the facade and was not afraid to call him out for being a softy who after having learnt about her relationship with Derek had been there for her as well as protected her from Shepherd and Montgomery-Shepherd. Meredith cheered him up after his choke up with George on the pericardiotomy when they were stuck in the elevator.

Jackson nodded in understanding but the clueless George said aloud, "Wait, you're sleeping with Evil Spawn?"

Meredith decided to avert the topic to avoid the awkward conversation by complaining about her own problems instead, "He's a brain surgeon! How can he be so brainless?"

After a week and having not heard any news of Derek having signed the divorce papers, Meredith was constantly putting off Derek and telling him that she was out of the relationship. That was till the fateful day when Derek had a spinal implant surgery with Meredith, where she finally broke all her indifferent facade in the scrub room after the surgery, "I lied. I'm not out ... of this relationship. Hating you is exhausting. I'm in. I'm so in, it's humiliating because here I am begging…"

Derek tried to interrupts quietly, but Meredith ignored him, "Shut up. You say Meredith and I yell, remember? … Ok, here it is. Your choice. It's simple." She started getting teary and emotional. " Her or me. And I'm sure she's really great. But, Derek... I love you... in a really, really big ... 'pretend to like your taste in music, let you eat the last piece of cheesecake, hold a radio over my head outside your window'...unfortunate way that makes me hate you, love you. So pick me. Choose me. Love me," Meredith begged.

Derek looked at her lovingly and made a move to touch caress her face but Meredith pulled away, "I'll be at Joe's tonight. So if you do decide to sign the papers, meet me there." Meredith was sorely disappointed when he did not appear that night. Alex, Cristina, George, Izzie and Jackson were there for her, even letting her indulge in more tequila.

"That McAdulterous-Lying-Son-of-a-Bitch's not coming," Meredith declared bitterly, downing another shot.

"This is getting hard to watch."

As they saw the news on a train wreck flashing on the TV screen, their pagers started beeping 911. All the interns got to work while a very drunk looking Meredith stumbled out of the elevator. Bailey walked up to them in a formal dress, which took all the interns by surprise since they have never seen her in anything but scrubs.

She started to put on a yellow gown and passed one to Meredith who simply said, "I seem to be a little bit drunk. I was off duty." Bailey angrily told Meredith to stay out of the way for now and the other interns proceeded with Bailey to get their assignments.

Throughout the commotion, Meredith was thoroughly regretting drinking that night. It was a train wreck. She stared in awe at a gurney with a man and a woman connected by have a metal pole through their torsos wheeled past her.

Jackson hooked Meredith up to a banana bag I.V., when Bailey realising that she wasn't lying about being drunk lectured her not to talk to patients, and not to practice any medicine. Meredith thought about simply going home since she could not be of any help but Bailey told her she'll be sober in a few hours and if she, Bailey, could not go home, no one could. Jackson patted her and told her not to cause any trouble before leaving to help out.

Meredith was bored out of her mind as she sat patiently watching all the action. So when Izzie walked past her, Meredith knowing that she was working with peds grabbed her arm and asked, "So how's it going with Addison? Bad mood? Good mood? 'Yay my husband picked me mood'?"

Izzie replied, "I think it's more of a 'I hate the smell of charred flesh' mood."

Meredith said, "Before you judge me, I know there was a train accident. People are very badly hurt. And that I'm a vapid narcissist when you mix me with alcohol. In case you were wondering, I know that."

Meredith found herself drawn to the room with the two patients stuck in between them. George, Bailey, Burke, Jackson and Meredith were inside as Derek walks in, seeing Meredith's I.V. and asked what happened."Tequila," Bailey replied and informed him that she was keeping an eye on her.

A drunk Meredith was one without inhibition. She noticed the scans, "The poles right through her spine and against her aorta," she paused to look at the other scan, "The pole is in line with Tom's inferior vena cava. So basically whoever you move doesn't stand a chance, So who are you guys picking?" Meredith questioned. Jackson nearly face palmed, and tried to urge Meredith to leave the room before she slipped up any further and risk exposing them.

Burke, Shepherd and Bailey were surprised at Meredith's analysis despite her drunken state. If they thought anything was suspicious, they did not push the subject further as they concentrated on the patient at hand, arguing to come up with a decision on who to save.

After having her blood drawn by Alex to check her blood alcohol levels on Bailey's orders, Meredith was cleared for work and to join in the surgery. Alex told her about Addison calling him out in front of a patient. And they both agreed with Alex's statement that "She's Satan's whore." Meredith asked if he yelled back at her which, he says he didn't. Meredith mocked, "Dude, you lost your mojo." She even teased him about chickening out in the open heart surgery and about Izzie.

In the end, they managed to pull the man out from the pole to save him but unfortunately the man died. Even after having been a part of many surgeries, patient dying on a table was always the hard the part of job, the hardest being the one to be the giver of bad news to their families.

As Meredith was in the scrub room alone with Derek, she finally plucked up the courage to ask her burning question even though she knew the answer, "You're staying with her."

Derek stayed silent for a few moment before replying, "She's my wife."

It hurt, but Meredith understood. She watched helplessly as Derek and Addison walked out of the hospital, Addison linking their arms together. Jackson knowing his best friend was holding back her agony and tears, pulled her in for a much needed hug.

* * *

Weeks passed, Derek and Addison were trying to fix their marriage through counselling. Addison decided to stay on as the Head of Neonatal Surgery and OB/GYN at Seattle Grace, signing a two-year contract after she and Derek decided to make an effort to work things out.

And the hospital rumour mill worked fast, everyone in the hospital had found out about Meredith's previous relationship with Derek. She was treated like a zoo display. She was the 'intern' who slept with the attending, the dirty mistress who was trying to curry favours. Meredith laughed humorlessly, if only they knew…

Meredith was grateful to the interns who stood by her, protecting her. Even Bailey helped her on many occasion. On the other hand, Cristina worked things out with Burke and even brought him for Thanksgiving dinner, a rather awkward one but he slowly warmed up to the rest of the interns and eventually Cristina had also 'moved in' with Burke. And the more surprising news was that Bailey was pregnant.

With the help of her friends, Meredith slowly learned to live with Derek only on a professional level. Jackson had been a great help in helping preventing from drinking too much and throwing herself at any random man at the bar. When he couldn't be physically there to watch over Meredith, he enlisted the help of Alex or Cristina.

And through this, Meredith grew a lot closer to Alex. Alex trusted her with the secret of failing his medical boards and how he did not see Izzie the same way she did him. Seeing the amount of trust Alex displayed towards her and how close they grew over the months, Meredith and Jackson finally revealed their secret to him and with their vast experience in surgery, Alex accepted help from the both of them to study for the medical boards. Alex and Cristina would join them occasionally on the surgeries to learn more about General Surgery and grew to admire their surgical prowess.

"Hey Meredith, I'm sorry for calling you ugly," Alex apologised on one of the days during their surgery, "You're hot"

"No worries, and you called me hot the first time we met, so I am not offended."

* * *

Meredith was typing at a computer standing up at a nurses' station. Meredith felt a presence hovering over her but paid no attention, "Invasive non-cell. With a history of COPD, " the man shrugged, "That guy's pretty much a goner, huh?"

Meredith continued typing, recognising the voice, "Sensitivity. I like that in a stranger. What are you doing here?"

"Visiting. Confounded by all the rain and it's only my first day in town. Makes me wanna stay in bed all day," the man lamented.

"We haven't seen each other in more than a year and already you're talking about bed. Not very subtle," Meredith finally smiled, looking up at the man.

"Subtle has never been my strong suit. So ... do you ever go out with co-workers?" the man leaned forward, observing Meredith's face.

"Are you hitting on me? In a hospital? Really, Mark. You never learn," Meredith teased before letting out a laugh and hugging the man. "I missed you too, Meredith. It's been too long."

Mark noticed Jackson walking down the stairs, waved at him and was about to call him "Ave…" but Meredith's hand was quick enough to cover Mark's mouth in time. All of sudden, Mark was lying on the floor. Derek had punched Mark really hard across the face. Meredith noticed Addison coming up the hallway and looking shocked.

"Oh my god!" Meredith was quick to dive to Mark's rescue before turning to glare at Derek, "What the hell was that?!"

Derek was shaking his hand from pain, "That's Mark."

Richard having seen the entire exchange redirected Addison and Derek into a conference room. Derek was sitting down while Addison tried to puts an ice pack on it but Derek removed it. Richard was pacing around angrily, "Punching out people on my surgical floor! My head of Neurosurgery punching out people on my surgical floor! Put the damn ice on your 2 million dollar a year hand!"

Derek finally placed the ice-pack back on his hand before Richard continued, "Now, would someone tell me what the hell happened?"

Derek gave Addison a pointed look, before a defeated Addison explained, "That was Mark… He and Derek used to work together back in New York. ... ... And umm... They ah... We were all close friends. ... Until, Derek found us in bed together."

Richard was silent for a moment, "Did you put your weight behind it?" "Yes sir." Richard nodded before leaving, "Well, alright then."

Derek glared at Addison, "What the hell is he doing here?"

Addison shook her head, "I have no idea..."

* * *

Meanwhile, in the Trauma room, Meredith was cleaning up the large cut on Mark's face while Jackson was preparing the sutures.

"Really Mark, do you ever learn, I heard about your affair all the way here in Seattle," Meredith chastised the older man.

"Hmm, so you're Derek's lusty intern, right? Heard about you all the way back in New York. You're famous. So I guess we have a lot in common. We're the dirty mistresses," Mark mused. "You know it's funny, Derek…" he turned to face Meredith but she grasped his face so he was staring straight so she could clean the wound on his cheek, "Derek walks in on me naked with his wife actually in the throes. And he just turns around and walks away, but he sees me so much as talking to you and I'm on the ground bleeding. Interesting, don't you think? Derek and I always had the same taste in woman."

Meredith doesn't respond and instead places a towel on his shoulder and hands him a mirror, "I think you can stitch up yourself."

"Can't you do it for me Grey, I trust you and don't you love me," Mark pouted.

Noticing her friends right outside the window watching them, Meredith smirked, "Would you rather I call one of the interns to do it instead?"

"So evil, Grey… What happened to the adorable girl I met in Boston?" Mark hands the mirror to Jackson to hold it up while he moved to start stitching up his face.

Out the window, Cristina, Alex, Izzie and George were all watching from the nurses' station in awe.

"Why is he suturing his own face?" George asked

"To turn me on," Cristina sighed dreamily as she rested her had on her palms.

"Cause he's Mark Sloan. He's like the go-to plastic surgeon on the East Coast," Alex said excitedly.

"That's the guy Addison was sleeping with? You can't really blame her, can you?" Izzie added.

Back to Meredith, Jackson and Mark, Jackson finally spoke up, "We should get your face checked."

Meredith left the room and approached the rest of the interns, "Mark wants an x-ray to check for fractures and Jackson's taking him."

"McSexy?" Cristina tried. Meredith shook her head.

"McYummy!" Izzie exclaimed, Meredith and Cristina said a unison No.

Meredith said, "No, he's a McSteamy."

Cristina smirked, "Oh there it is." Izzie nodded in agreement and chuckled.

"Excuse me, I'm just choking back some McVomit," George gagged.

"Anyone get what McDreamy or McSteamy sees in She-Shepherd?" Cristina pointed out.

"She's McHot," Alex replied, "McYeah, she is," George gave him a high five.

From watching their earlier interaction, Cristina realised they knew each other, "Do you know him?"

"We met four years ago in Boston… he's my ex," Meredith confessed, seeing no point in hiding it.

"Wow, small world," Izzie muttered. Derek, Addison, Meredith and Mark were one huge love rectangle mess.

"So McSteamy, is really… Steamy," Cristina teased.

"Shut up…. We went out for a year but he felt more like a brother than a lover, so we gave up and became friends instead. We hadn't really kept in contact since I've moved with Jackson to Seattle."

* * *

Mark and Jackson were looking at x-rays of Mark's face in the x-ray viewing room. "Looks like its all clear, Dr Sloan".

Mark watched as Jackson got up, "How have you guys been, I haven't heard from you guys in months."

"It has been a crazy few months, especially for Meredith, with the Shepherds…" Jackson trailed off.

Wanting to change the topic, Mark smirked as he rubbed Jackson's shoulder, "So have you finally decided to join me as the Plastics Posse?"

"Nope, not anytime soon," Jackson chuckled," Mark shoulders deflated before rising up again when Jackson suggested, "Have you ever seen an advanced case of craniodiaphyseal dysplasia? Lionitis?"

Derek and Mark argued in Richard's office about the prospect of him joining in Derek's surgery as a plastic surgeon, which was met with strong objections by Derek Inside the office, who accused Mark who just wanted to get published. Out of friendship to Derek, Richard wanted to say no to him, but as Chief, he gave Mark the green light, on the condition that the patient's parents gave their consent. Unfortunately, the patient died from an unexpected bleed so Mark did not get a chance to play his part. After persuasion from Jackson and Alex, Mark got the parents' approval to fix their son's face in the morgue.

When Mark finally bumped into Addison, Addison begged him to drop whatever it is he came to do. Mark said that they all made mistakes and he lost his best friend and is trying to fix their relationship. Mark wondered how Addison expected the marriage to work out if she herself was not interested. He told her that Derek is in love with the Meredith and was not even trying to hide it, not understanding why Addison would stick around for that. "Your marriage is over, all you have to do is admit it," Mark advised his friend before leaving her to her thoughts.

Mark found Meredith at the bar and sat beside her, ordering a double scotch, single malt. He noticed she looks sad and was interrupted on his train of thoughts

"I still love Derek, hating him is exhausting," Meredith admitted, her voice softened, "Do you... love her? Addison… Do you love Addison?"

It hurt him to see Meredith so downturned and it might have been due to the fact that they were lovers at one point of time but all he saw now was his little sister in distress. "No… I don't think so. I felt guilty about hurting Derek. I want to fix our friendship," Mark admitted.

"Do you want another shot?" Marked offered to buy her a drink. "No, I've got a whipple at 2200 later, you can come by later,... OR4."

Mark returned to the hospital, ending up in an elevator alone Derek with Derek. "Look I was drunk, I was stupid, it was a mistake, I don't love your wife. How can you forgive Addison but not me?"

"I didn't forgive her but with you, I have no obligation to try," Derek declared. Right before Derek was about to get off to take the stairs, Mark stopped him, "She still loves you, you know. I've known Meredith for years and she has never told me she was in love in anyone before."

Derek froze in his track. How did Mark know Meredith? Mark sensing Derek's mood change realised why, "Remember the time I was working in Boston, I met her there. We always had the same taste in woman, I was together with her at one point but we decided being friends was better. We worked together in Mass Gen."

Derek turned to face Mark, "Worked in Mass Gen?" Derek was confused, "Who worked together with you in Mass Gen?"

Mark oblivious to the man's confusion simply replied, "Grey and Avery?"

"Grey and ... Avery?" Derek repeated Mark in disbelief.

"Yeah that's what I said, Meredith Grey and Jackson Avery," Mark remarked impatiently, as if it was common knowledge.

"What?" Derek spluttered. "Isn't it Meredith Black? Jackson Fox?"

Mark looked at Derek as if he grew another head but realisation dawned on him. "Oh so that's why they left Boston, they're in hiding," Mark remarked thoughtfully, "I guess they forgot to tell me to keep my mouth shut."

Mark noticed Derek's inner turmoil as if trying to puzzle all the pieces together, "How did I not recognise them, it's been almost a year. We did a Conjoined Twin Separation Surgery at Mass Gen together… I almost met them at the Awards..."

Mark shrugged, "Maybe it's because its hard to tell who's who in the OR with all the mask… and you only met them twice," Mark suddenly recall Meredith's words, "Actually, I've got something that could help you remember…"

Mark led the lost looking Derek up to the observation deck of OR4, only to be stopped by Richard, "I am sorry but this is a private surgery so no one is allowed to observe."

"Chief, Grey invited me to come," Richard was surprised that Mark knew Meredith. Mark pointed to Derek behind him, "And I did not know that it was supposed to be a secret so Derek knows."

Derek walked past Webber as he sat at the front row, silently watching Jackson and Meredith at work with Alex and Cristina assisting them. He was drawn in, recognised the fluid movement, the grace, the effortlessness of the surgeon's hand, the same ones that led the surgery he helped at Mass Gen.

Mark noticing Derek gaping in awe, could not help but chuckle. "It never gets old. I love watching Avery and Grey in surgery. Ellis would kill me if I try steal Meredith to Plastics, but I've been trying to persuade Jackson. I am pretty sure he will cave soon," Mark declared in determination.

"It's why I try to make it whenever they have surgeries. Better luck Sloan, I heard Avery wanted to try for Cardio fellowship before he came here," Richard glanced over to the man sitting in front of him, "And Grey with Neuro…" This caused Derek to perk up but remained focused at the woman he had came to love over the couple of months. Whatever love he had for her, now included admiration at her nimble and skilled hands that went beyond the bedroom.

"Good work everyone," Jackson called out as they wrapped up.

"You guys made the Whipple look so easy," Cristina gushed as the 'interns' pulled of their masks.

"I missed a good whipple. More whipple I say," Jackson joked.

"Chief, what Avery sa…" Meredith was cut off when she realised who the man sitting on the front row was.

"Derek…" All the heads in the OR whipped upwards to see Dr Shepherd's sitting emotionlessly at the front row. Realising the attention was now on him, Derek made a swift exit from the observation deck.

Meredith dashed out of the OR to find Derek. She managed to find him on the helipad sitting as he stared at the cityscape.

"When?" Meredith felt her heart break at hearing the broken voice, "When were you planning to tell me?"

Meredith took a seat beside Derek, as she too, looked out at the landscape, "Dinner… the day Addison came by…" Derek sighed, that was the same day Derek had planned to tell Meredith about his marriage too until the appearance of Addison at the hospital.

"You were amazing," Derek praised, Meredith turned to face him, realising that he was staring at her face. As they gazed into each other eyes, "I always knew there was something off, you knew too much for an intern… I heard from Webber, you were interested in Neuro…"

"I still am, for my second board certification… I would love to learn under you," Meredith declared.

"I could… ask Webber to squeeze a few night surgeries," Derek suggested before falling back as Meredith had thrown her arms around him in excitement, "You would? Thank you thank you."

In her excitement, Meredith did not realise that she was straddling Derek. It had been months since Derek saw Meredith so closely and this happy, he couldn't help the warm feeling rising within him, he reached his hand upwards to hold on to her before leaning forward to meet her lips with his. Meredith realising his intentions, and pulled herself away, "We can't… Derek, you're still married…" Meredith got up and left him alone on the helipad.

Derek groaned, just when they were finally making amends, he screwed it up again.

* * *

 _A/N: I actually wanted Bailey to find out first but for some reason I just wanted Derek finding out through Mark. Hope you guys liked it. R &R. _


	6. Explosive Love

**Second Time Around**

Summary: Meredith Grey and Jackson Avery were prodigies in General Surgery, having graduated early from medical school and being the youngest attendings in history. Yet, they were always shadowed by their Grey and Avery names and were feared by people their own age who were only intern. So they decided for change in Seattle.

* * *

 **Chapter 6: Explosive Love**

"How are my two favorite interns?" Mark Sloan approached Meredith and Jackson who were hanging out at the nurse's station.

Jackson gave the man an awkward smile, which made Mark Sloan suddenly aware of the state Meredith was in.

"What's up with her?" Mark pointed to Meredith who was scribbling furiously on the charts.

"I am a strong independent woman," Meredith looked up from her charts as she declared with determination. "I don't grovel, I don't beg. I am swearing off men. Men all suck!"

"Woah… woah… Grey. Easy there, not all men suck. Look at me, I am amazing. I pulled a couple of stem cells from the baby in utero. Six weeks later, I have grown skin. Like God," Mark bragged about his latest feat. Meredith simply glared at the man.

"Hey, if this is about Derek, forget him. How bout you and me at Joe's tonight, and I can remind you how amazing a man can be. I'm all man. I'm sure you can remember," Mark flirted, throwing a wink at her.

"If I have enough tequila…" Meredith suggested as she flipped through her charts. Mark eyes lit up as he leaned in closer to her but Jackson wedged himself between the two.

"Oh god, no please no… so loud … I don't want to be in the same house when Sloan and you are doing the nasty nasty," Jackson groaned.

"Where have you two been?" Bailey's voice boomed behind them causing all three of them to jump. "Fox, you're with Dr Sloan. Black you're with Dr Torres," Bailey instructed.

"Wait… Who is Torres?" Meredith called after her resident, who already had walked away.

"She's a resident competing with Bailey for Chief Resident," Jackson replied.

"Oh come on Grey, you've been here longer than me and you don't know Callie," Mark said smugly.

"Well, I don't make it my life goal to know all the ladies in the hospital. And since you know her name, I'm assuming she must be good," Meredith snapped back at him.

"Don't need to be jealous Grey. She's a great friend," Mark patted Meredith on the shoulder, leaning down to her ears, "For the record, you were better."

Meredith couldn't help the blush that creeped up her face while Jackson shook his head, not wanting to know whatever sex remark Mark had said to his best friend. Mark pointed to a lady walking down the stairs, "That's her."

"She's been glaring at me for weeks. I didn't know what problems she had against me. I have yet to work with her," Meredith complained.

"And Derek's been glaring at me. I wonder why?" Mark replied sarcastically before beckoning Jackson to follow him.

"Dr Torres," Meredith greeted the approaching resident but the woman whizzed pass her. Meredith groaned internally, following her. Meredith was tempted to confront her regarding her dismissive behaviour towards her but resisted.

After an entire day of popping bones back, broken bones, braces, and a knee replacement surgery, Meredith saw the potential and passion that Callie held for ortho.

As Callie left for Joe's, Meredith followed the woman and sat from a distance to observe her. Callie was flirting with the ever so oblivious George. When Callie was finally alone, she took the opening, "Hi Dr Torres, can i Join you?"

Not receiving a reply, she took a seat beside the older woman and ordered a tequila.

"So George, huh? Is that why you hate me?" Callie finally turned to face Meredith.

"I'm Addison's friend," Callie replied sharply.

"And as Addison's friend, I am sure you know about me being the slutty intern who slept with his husband. I can assure you, I'm not interested in George. Hell, I am not interested in Derek either or man in general at the moment."

Meredith watched as Callie was having an internal struggle before downing another shot, "Mark sings praises about you, Addison complains about you, you slept with Shepherd, you're an intern and you're quite popular. I can't even get an intern to notice me because he is interested in you. It's easy being you."

"In case you didn't realise, I am the slutty mistress that screwed an attending. I don't think thats a good reputation to have. It's degrading. If you're really interested in George, I could help you only if you'd stop glaring at me," Meredith offered as she raised her glass. Callie chuckled and clinked their glasses.

* * *

Jackson and Meredith walked up to the nurses station where Cristina, George and Izzie were in deep discussion pointing out at random residents.

"Hey, Karev. What are we doing?" Jackson asked.

"Trying to figure out who's going to be Bailey's replacement"

Cristina slid beside the two latecomers and tried to asked discreetly, "Hey Jackson, Mer, you guys are close to the chief right? Do you know who's replacing Bailey?"

A loud booming voice resonated from the stairs.

"Yang, Stevens, O'Malley, Karev, Black, Fox!" A young, cheerful female doctor bounded down the stairs and made her way up to them. "Here you are! I was looking for you guys in the locker room but you weren't there and then I thought well maybe my interns are looking for me too and then I come out her and here you are."

Cristina looked horrified and Meredith was suppressing her laughter, "You guys look like a great group… Which is awesome. Because my horoscope said it's going to be a very challenging day and I was a little worried but no you guys ... yeah, you look like a good group. Which is great! Because we're going to have so much fun! Hi!" The woman held out her arms and hugs Cristina.

"I'm Sydney Heron. 4th Year and my philosophy just so you know is um is heal with love," Alex and Izzie raised their eyebrows, "Ok, so ... The E.R needs somebody down there for a consult, does anybody ... who wants to …"

After having escaped, the 6 of them convened at their usual hangout spot in the empty hallway sitting on the spare hospital beds. "I hate her," Cristina complained, Meredith nodded, "She's so bright and shiny…"

"At least you and Alex got to scrub into the Necrotizing fasciitis surgery," Izzie said to Cristina.

"So is this the best place to hangout," the 6 of them turned to the voice.

"Dr Sloan / Mark"

"Mark what are you doing here?" Meredith asked.

"Is that anyway to treat your new Head of Plastics ENT? I'm disappointed in you Meredith…" Meredith shook her head, "Why didn't you tell me, congrats!"

"I wanted it to be a surprise, but I am here on business, I need an intern." Alex was quick to volunteer his service but Mark ignored the man. "Ave- Fox, come along," Mark was quick to correct his slip up.

"Nope, I'm on McAss service today…" Jackson was quick to dismiss him. Mark let out a laugh at the very 'endearing' nickname. Even if he was not on speaking terms with his best friend, Mark knew they were slowly mending his friendship with Derek. He only hoped that Derek would come to his senses about Meredith.

"One day Fox, I will not give up on you," Mark declared determinedly before walking, "Karev, you can come along…"

"20 says Alex probably will be doing coffee and laundry runs," Meredith turned to her best friends. "I'm not stupid, I wouldn't even bet a penny on that," Jackson chuckled.

"So, here's what we're going to do," Cristina declared, as the five of them put their head together to find away to chase away their new resident.

* * *

Empty boards, quite ERs. The 6 interns were greeted by their very pregnant resident,"I've been gone 2 weeks. 2 weeks! And you ran off 2 residents! I've got people phoning me at home, screaming telling me my interns are Rosemary's babies." The six of them looking slightly offended by that. "Nobody wants you! Do you think I have time for this? I am pregnant! I'm supposed to be on bed rest. I'm supposed to be growing a human being. I'm supposed to be calm! Do I look calm to you? Did I raise you fools to be pariahs?"

Bailey instructed her interns interns to wait for incoming trauma, with the exception of George. Alex, Cristina, and Meredith went to to the arriving ambulance. A screaming woman climbs out and one of the paramedics has her hand inside the patient's body cavity, with a huge gaping the rauma room, Hannah, the paramedic with her hand inside the patient, claimed that her hand was the only thing that would stop the bleeding despite her partner advise her not to do it, Dr Burke told her that she had won herself a trip to the OR. Mindy the woman that was brought in with the patient kept on screaming before starting to sob uncontrollably.

As soon as she heard the sound of splashing water, Bailey told George to get a wheelchair George page Addison, "Tell her my contractions are 10 minutes apart and my water just broke all over your shoes," she told George and also asked him to call her missing husband.

In another trauma room, Izzie and Cristina were working on an MVC victim with a depressed skull fracture and an epidural hematoma who kept asking about his wife. Izzie informed him the patient is Tucker Jones. While Tucker had a seizure, Izzie answered his ringing phone and was surprised to hear George, realising that the patient is Bailey's husband while Derek and Cristina took Tucker to the OR. Addison's having heard about Tucker's accident and wondered what to tell Bailey while Derek told her to wait until they have something concrete to tell her. Derek promised to take care of Tucker and get him back to Bailey safe and sound.

After seeing Mindy's arguing with the patient's friend about reenacting World War II, and having accidentally shot the bazooka but there was an explosion, realisation dawned on Alex. Alex ran off to the OR, ignoring Richard's warning to slow down. As Burke was about to begin the thoracotomy so that Hannah can pull her hand out, Alex burst into the OR. After confirming that there was no through wound and Hannah was touching something hard, Burke informed Meredith everything and to tell the charge nurse to call the bomb squad, about a code black. A possible live, unexploded ammunition. Burke slowly evacuated the entire team out, but Meredith chose to stay.

With the exception of Burke's and Shepherd's OR having been evacuated from the code black, patients transported to Mercy West or re-routed to Seattle Pres and the bomb squad arrived on the surgical floor. Dylan Young, head of the squad urged Derek to leave the OR but Derek refused because he had to save Bailey's husband while Bailey was somewhere in the hospital in labour.

After realising that the anestheolgist have fled, Cristina who had withdrew herself from Shepherd's surgery took the Ambu bag while Meredith convinced a scared Hannah into not taking her hand out. The panicking Hannah kept saying her hands got to come out while all the others urged her to relax and keep her hand where it is but instead, she yelled and took them out.

Within that split second, Meredith mind raced and going against her screaming instincts. Everybody but Meredith had ducked to the ground and covered their head to protect themselves from the explosion while Hannah ran out of the OR. Realising there was no explosion, everyone got back onto their feet and found that Meredith had taken Hannah's place, her hand now inside the patient. Cristina and Dylan kept telling Meredith that she was incredibly stupid.

Having heard about Meredith's stunt, Jackson rushed to the OR to see Burke urging Cristina because he would not be able to think with her in the OR. Meredith assured Cristina they'll be fine and Jackson volunteered to take over Cristina's place, "How am I suppose to face your mum and mine after this?" Despite Meredith's dangerous position, she let out a bitter laugh. In the locker room, Alex, Izzie, and George were worried about Meredith while Cristina scrubbed back into Derek's OR. "This area has been evacuated Dr. Yang, you don't have to be here" Derek pressed.

"Yes I do. And somehow you're still here. Besides I guess you need a little company," Derek resigned to the stubborn woman and let her join in.

"How's the paramedic Hannah doing?" Derek asked Cristina since he was out of the loop on the ongoings outside the OR.

"Hannah?" Cristina stalled, not knowing how to answer. "The girl with the bomb."

Should she tell him, Cristina tried to hide her expressions to prevent any suspicion from Derek, "Oh, uh she's hanging in there too…"

After having studied the blueprints, Richard warned the bomb squad that the OR is right above the OR floor's main oxygen line and they had to move the patient and Meredith to another OR to prevent a massive explosion that could blow up the entire hospital. Jackson held onto Meredith's free hand to give it a reassuring squeeze when he noticed her distress about moving the entire gurney and not moving her hands, which Cristina noticed through the window in the OR. Cristina in a dilemma finally revealed to Derek that Meredith was the girl with the bomb. Suddenly, Bailey husband flatlined, Cristina did the CPR before Derek took over. Meanwhile, George was helping Bailey with the last few pushes for her baby to be borned. William George Bailey Jones

After having identified the device to be shaped like a rocket, Burke cut into the patient. "His BPs dropping, you have to pull out now." Meredith panicked suddenly imagined herself in a bright OR with Derek, telling Derek she was scared. Derek's voice echoed in her mind, "I know, you can do this." She was brought back to reality by Jackson squeezing her hand. With tears in her eyes, she steeled herself and gently pulled the device out of the man's body cavity, making sure to keep it level. Burke continued the surgery to stop the bleeding after Meredith had taken out the device and gently placed into Dylan's hands. Dylan praised her and made his way out of the OR where Meredith step into the hallway to see him walk off, but it exploded, killing Dylan while Meredith was knocked backwards by the force of the explosion before hearing Jackson crying out for her name and then, pitch black.

* * *

Derek rushed to the lobby after the surgery, and Addison approached him happy to see him, pulling him into a hug. "Where is she?" Derek asked Addison as she pulled away. It hurt Addison that her husband was asking for another woman, but seeing the distraught look on his face, she pointed to the interns locker room. She knew her marriage was over, knew that her husband would not be able to let go of his love for Meredith. She knew there was no point trying to hang on. Mark Sloan was right. Mark who was in the hallway, had seen the entire exchange, embraced her as she cried on his shoulder.

Derek entered to the locker room bathroom to see Jackson and Cristina helping a shell shocked Meredith who was still in her scrubs and gown into the shower. They removed her her scrub cap and gown, leaving her in her shirt and pants and continued washing off the blood and debris. Noticing Derek by the doorway, Jackson gave him a tight smile before giving Meredith a kiss on the cheek and nudging Cristina to let Derek take over.

Meredith turned around to see Derek who was slowly approaching her, "Hey," she greeted him softly.

He examined her from head to toe and looked very relieved to see her unscathed and alive, "You almost died today."

He picked up the shampoo as he slowly moved his hand to move his hands through her hair, gently massaging her head.

"Yeah. I almost died today," Meredith replied as she held out her hand to reach to Derek's face, "I can't remember our last kiss. All I could think about was I'm going to die today and I can't remember our last kiss. Which is pathetic, but the last time we were together and happy I ... want to be able to remember that. And I can't Derek… I can't remember."

Derek stopped his hands as he took his time to study her face, to embrace her frustrations, "I'm glad you didn't die today."

He pulled the shower head, and slowly ran his hands through her hair, washing off the shampoo from the head. Without taking his eyes of her, he smiled reminiscing at her previous question, "It was a Thursday morning. You were wearing that ratty little Harvard t-shirt you look so good in. The one with the hole in the back of the neck." He chuckled a little.

He pulled her out of the shower and used a towel to slowly dry her hair, "You'd just washed your hair and you smelled like some kind of flower." He stopped to smell her hair which smelled like strawberries before continuing, "I was running late for surgery. You said you were gonna see me later and you leaned to me, you put your hand on my chest and you kissed me. Soft. It was quick, kinda like a habit. You know, like we'd do it every day for the rest of our lives. You went back to reading the newspaper and I went to work. That was the last time we kissed."

As he stopped towel drying her hair. Meredith smiled suddenly remembering the particular memory, "Lavender, My hair smelled like lavender from my conditioner."

Derek nodded, "Yes, Lavender." He smiled before turning serious. Deep down, Derek knew, the thought of losing her scared him immensely. For the first time in a long time, he was very sure of what he had to do. For he had never felt so much love and pain from one person, like he did for the woman before him. He could not bare to be apart from her.

He kissed her forehead, whispering a barely audible 'I love you' and wrapped his arms around her, never wanting to let go.

* * *

Derek wanted Meredith to be the first one to know but meeting divorce lawyers in the hospital was not the best way to keep rumours from spreading. By the end of the day, the entire hospital knew Derek and Addison were having a divorce. Derek wanted a clean break, only wanting his land with the trailer in Seattle while Addison could have it all since he reasoned that he had an actual relationship with Meredith, not just an one night stand.

At the end of the day, Derek knocked on Meredith's front door, greeted by Izzie who called for Meredith. They stood awkwardly standing on the front porch staring at each other, Meredith broke the silence. "It's true isn't it?" Meredith asked as she folded her arms.

Derek pursed his lips and nod, "I am a free man." Derek took a breath, nervous about how she would react to the words he was about to say, "Look Meredith,... I know it has been a rough few months for us,... but I love you and I want to give us a try again. You were like coming up for fresh air. Like I was drowning and you were saving me. That's all I know."

Derek was terrified that Meredith's face only displayed a blank expression. He looked down and sighed. He understood, why Meredith would not want to be with him after all that she had been through.

"I don't know Derek. I need to learn to trust you again…" Derek face fell at the rejection.

"We have to start from the very beginning, as friends…" Derek perked up at her gentle voice, at least there was a chance, "Absolutely."

"No more secrets, I've had enough of being the headlines of the hospital gossips," Meredith said, giggling.

Derek smiled, His secret had destroyed their relationship. He had learnt his lessons, "Of course Meredith Black."

"Grey," Meredith corrected, "Meredith Grey."

Derek nodded as he wrapped his arms around Meredith, nuzzling her hair, "Mmm, lavender"

Meredith pulled away from his embrace staring sternly at him, "We're friends, Derek."

"Are you saying that friends don't hug?" Derek teased her.

She nodded before giving him a thoughtful look, "I want a dog."

Derek chuckled, and once more pulled her into a hug, "Anything for you Meredith Grey. In fact, I have a surgery I want you to join in tomorrow. Spinal Osteomyelitis"


End file.
